CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

NPR reports:

Nearly 60 years after writing such counterculture classics as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan has sold his entire songwriting catalog — more than 600 songs — to Universal Music Publishing Group in a deal announced Monday morning by Universal. The agreement is worth more than $300 million. The deal with Dylan may be the highest price ever paid for a musician or group’s songwriting rights.

For Universal Music Publishing Group, which is owned by the French media giant Vivendi, there’s a lot of appeal in owning Dylan’s songwriting rights. The company will collect money any time another musician covers any of those songs, and it will earn revenue for allowing the songs to be used in commercials and movies as well as when the songs are streamed, sold commercially on such formats as CDs, or broadcast.

Breaking News: Bob Dylan has sold his entire songwriting catalog to Universal Music, in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of a single act’s publishing rights. https://t.co/tFyt5oFaCq

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 7, 2020