Legendary 70s rock band’s catalogue of hits being sold for $1,270,000,000-Laura Harman-Entertainment – Metro

The rights to Queen’s music has reportedly been bought by Sony for millions (Picture: Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns)

It has been announced that the entire catalogue of Queen’s music is being sold to Sony for $1.27billion (£1,000,696,500.00).

The news was first reported by Hits who claimed in its report: ‘Sony Music has prevailed in the contest for Queen’s recording and publishing rights and their attendant revenue.’

The deal will mean that the only revenue that Sony won’t have rights to is the live performance revenue, which will be retained by Brian May and Roger Taylor who tour with Adam Lambert under the name, Queen + Adam Lambert.

At present, Universal Music Group manages Queen’s distribution, but this will expire around 2026 or 2027 and will reportedly then pass to Sony.

The recorded music rights will still be owned by Disney who struck a deal in 1999 for an undisclosed price. Per Variety, some of the band members’ remaining royalties from Disney will go to Sony once the deal closes. 

The purchase will include rights to hit songs such as: Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, Another One Bites the Dust, Radio Ga Ga, and I Want To Break Free.

The band’s music is set to be owned by Sony (Picture: RB/Redferns)

The purchase is an investment and means that when Queen songs are used in films, TV, or adverts, it’s Sony that will be collecting the royalties cheque. 

This isn’t the only big purchase of music rights from Sony, which now boasts the rights to music from various artists.

Sony purchased Bruce Springsteen’s back catalogue for $500,000,000 in 2022. It has also previously been reported that Sony purchased 50% of Michael Jackson’s catalogue for roughly $600 million.

Other high-profile catalogues of signers have also been sold off in recent years. Neil Young, Bob Dylan and David Bowie’s collections were all acquired by labels for hundreds of millions of dollars.

In contrast, artists like Taylor Swift, Prince, Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa have fought or entered new contracts to ensure they own the masters of their music.

Queen first formed in London in 1970 (Picture: Universal Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Queen has never officially broken up, but only two of the original foursome still perform together.

In 1991, Freddie Mercury died of AIDs related bronchopneumonia. Following his death, John Deacon performed on a few occasions with the group but retired from music in 1997, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Brian and Roger are still performing together and concluded the The Rhapsody Tour earlier this year in February.

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