Artists, songwriters and publishers have made headlines for enormous catalog sales in the past two years, and the rate of deals only intensified in light of the pandemic’s effect on revenue-generating activities. Over this time, Manatt senior partner Gary Gilbert has been especially active in negotiating these transactions, including handling deals that encompass the full sale of assets—including copyrights, master recordings, master royalties, publishing and writer royalties, and SoundExchange—as well as those for producer royalties.
Gilbert has shown a particular skill in international transactions. As an example, he recently represented a well-known Scandinavian songwriting and music production team in its sale of royalties to Merck Mercuriadis, manager-turned-investor and CEO and founder of Hipgnosis. Among its many successes, this client is most famous for co-writing worldwide smash hits for U.S. chart-topping artists. Gilbert is currently representing additional iconic rock artists in their full sale of assets, and an iconic music producer in the sale of producer royalties. Other Manatt music attorneys engaged on these deals include Eric Custer and Beau Stapleton.
As one of the oldest and deepest music practices in the country, Manatt’s music team has been at the forefront of industry-shaping, domestic and international deals for more than 40 years. Our team—which also includes Jordan Bromley, Lee Phillips, Jeff Biederman, Monika Tashman and W. Joseph Anderson—has handled approximately $2 billion of deals in the past two years, both talent- and company-side, sell-side and buy-side.
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