Music catalogs: why many cannot be sold when the offer arrives

I’d like to share a real case of how a legal framework is built for buying and selling music catalogs.

An increasingly valuable asset

Music catalogs are among the most highly valued assets on the market. Investment funds, labels and publishers are competing to acquire them.

But there is something that is not always visible from the outside: many artists and labels discover, only when they receive a purchase offer, that their contracts do not support the sale because they do not hold the rights needed to sell. In other words, the asset is there, but it lacks the legal architecture required to be transferred.

The lawyer is not a brake: it is what makes the deal viable

That is why I like to say that a lawyer’s work, far from being a brake, is what makes a deal viable. At the firm we handle these cases by drafting the agreements needed to make these very particular transactions possible.

At Synowiec & Asociados we support labels, publishers and artists in the legal structuring of music catalogs and M&A transactions in the industry.