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The only way to justify these prices is movie/TV/advertising licensing which is negotiated for each specific instance. Streaming brings in a fraction of cent pe

The only way to justify these prices is movie/TV/advertising licensing which is negotiated for each specific instance. Streaming brings in a fraction of cent per play so his catalog can't be generating more than a million dollars per year at best. Using his music to sell prescription drugs to nostalgic baby boomers watching Fox News is likely the plan.

jlmorton 6y ago
> Streaming brings in a fraction of cent per play so his catalog can't be generating more than a million dollars per year at best. Wow, I think that's wildly off the mark. Bob Dylan probably has several billion streams per year, if not more. On Spotify right now, his top 10 songs have a billion streams. Obviously those did not all occur in a single year, but Dylan's catalogue is deep, and Spotify is hardly the only platform. One billion streams per year is about $4 million on Spotify.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  I would assume other people have commercial rights percentages within Dylan's organization, management and past agreements, the sale price is highly unlikely to all go into Dylan's pockets. The big revenue comes from film and advertising licensing, we saw this when Michael Jackson (who owned the Beatles back catalog along with Sony who he was in a vicious battle with). Despite the claims in this article, Jackson didn't sell out many Beatles songs, it was Sony after he died who enabled and profited from Beatles songs in commercials and films. https://www.biography.com/news/michael-jackson-paul-mccartney-beatles-music-catalog https://www.biography.com/news/michael-jackson-paul-mccartne...
- hardtke 6y ago
  I was estimating a few hundred million streams per year (including All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix). The $4 million/billion streams gets split a few ways and the songwriter only gets a portion of that. Radio was more lucrative for songwriters since the songwriters got the bulk of the revenue (no payments to performers).

jlmorton 6y ago

> Streaming brings in a fraction of cent per play so his catalog can't be generating more than a million dollars per year at best. Wow, I think that's wildly off the mark. Bob Dylan probably has several billion streams per year, if not more. On Spotify right now, his top 10 songs have a billion streams. Obviously those did not all occur in a single year, but Dylan's catalogue is deep, and Spotify is hardly the only platform. One billion streams per year is about $4 million on Spotify.

olivermarks 6y ago
I would assume other people have commercial rights percentages within Dylan's organization, management and past agreements, the sale price is highly unlikely to all go into Dylan's pockets. The big revenue comes from film and advertising licensing, we saw this when Michael Jackson (who owned the Beatles back catalog along with Sony who he was in a vicious battle with). Despite the claims in this article, Jackson didn't sell out many Beatles songs, it was Sony after he died who enabled and profited from Beatles songs in commercials and films. https://www.biography.com/news/michael-jackson-paul-mccartney-beatles-music-catalog https://www.biography.com/news/michael-jackson-paul-mccartne...
hardtke 6y ago
I was estimating a few hundred million streams per year (including All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix). The $4 million/billion streams gets split a few ways and the songwriter only gets a portion of that. Radio was more lucrative for songwriters since the songwriters got the bulk of the revenue (no payments to performers).