Red Hot Chili Peppers ink $300M deal with Warner Music to sell catalog

rrandycupertino about 4 hours ago 61 commentsRead Article on hollywoodreporter.com

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https://guitar.com/news/industry-news/red-hot-chili-peppers-...

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Discussion (61 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

hmokiguess•about 3 hours ago

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

I can't tell, if I'm a king pin or a pauper

stephenhuey•about 2 hours ago

Under the Bridge is still my favorite...

Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel like my only friend Is the city I live in, The City of Angels Lonely as I am, together we cry

bix6•19 minutes ago

Unimpressed by material excess

mxfh•about 3 hours ago

This is one of the reasons we can't have proper soundtracks in video games or non AAA TV shows anymore or re-releases of old TV-shows anymore.

I just feel bad for all the pension fonds backing this Bain Capital PE joint venture who will have an off chance of making back their investments with the current state of IP and AI trends.

sparkling•about 1 hour ago

In a world full of endless AI slop, wouldn't original recordings become more valuable over time?

stavros•3 minutes ago

Yes, like in a world full of electronic music, original recordings of guitar players became more valuable over time.

aidos•about 3 hours ago

That does seem like less than I would expect!

It always makes me a bit sad that everyone knows RHCP but less so their early stuff. Blood sugar sex magik is a funk masterpiece. Didn’t help that for years Spotify used the singles versions of the tracks so the levels were all over the place and it was basically unstreamable.

ThomW•about 3 hours ago

Freaky Styley is their funk masterpiece. haha

aidos•about 2 hours ago

Fair. It did have George Clinton at the helm.

I loved all the early stuff. Freaky Styley, Mothers Milk, The Uplift Mofo party plan. With Rick Rubin at the controls I just think Blood Sugar Sex Magik took their sound to another level.

dyauspitr•21 minutes ago

$300M is a lot though.

mlhpdx•about 1 hour ago

Out in L.A.

neom•about 3 hours ago

Re: the "low price", they'd already sold their publishing right in 2021 for $140MM, so this is the master rights they sold for 300. By comparison, Springsteen sold both his together to Sony in 2021 for $500MM.

embedding-shape•about 3 hours ago

I don't think they're just selling the mastering rights here, it's the rights for the recordings that are being played that is being sold here.

> The new deal with Warner Music Group hands over the rights to the official recordings, meaning the label will profit from any further streaming, radio play or album sales.

Edit: I'm stupid, you mean "master rights", which is correct, they're getting the rights of the masters. Your typo made me think of the act of mastering music, not the "masters".

neom•about 2 hours ago

Fixed - thanks!

afavour•about 3 hours ago

I'm surprised the number is this low! Queen sold their catalogue for $1.27bn and while RHCP are clearly not on their scale I thought they were pretty high up there, especially given how long they've been active.

Waterluvian•about 3 hours ago

All subjective and all that. But I feel like 300M vs. 1.27B is exactly where I would have personally pinned their ratio difference.

To roughly frame it: if we made another golden record, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had 4 Queen songs and 1 RHCP song.

sho_hn•about 3 hours ago

Same, or worse. Having lived in Europe and Korea I can tell you numerous Queen songs have instant recognizability the world over, but I would say RHCP are a household name mostly in the US, except maybe some older people recognizing Californication as a distinctly 90s happening.

amarant•about 2 hours ago

In Europe it's cheating. Queen is from Europe.

But yeah, Californication is pretty much my only rhcp reference.

Also: what do you mean "older people"? I ain't that old yet! Shakes fist at cloud

esseph•about 2 hours ago

Californication was 2000. I think a single came out in the summer of 1999 off that album though.

vages•about 3 hours ago

In terms of artistic quality, perhaps. In terms of expected future royalties, I think Queen would be an order of magnitude more valuable than most artists.

vasco•about 3 hours ago

So its all good since it sold for an order of magnitude more

crispyambulance•about 2 hours ago

Beyond a certain amount, the actual number becomes meaningless especially for people who already have dynastic wealth not even counting this. It's just what they happened to negotiate.

It's quite a retirement package.

manquer•about 3 hours ago

It was also a different market in 2024. Much more fluid private credit industry, deal volume was much higher[1] and under very different interest rate regime[2], also generated music was just getting somewhat decent and the risk probably wasn't being factored in to long term value yet.

[1] The Queen deal came at end of series of high profile catalog acquisitions all 500M+ buys - Springsteen, Jackson(half), Bob Dylan.

[2] Interest rate while high was trending down and widely expected to even reach to pre-pandemic levels in few quarters.

red-iron-pine•about 2 hours ago

yeah also surprised.

and as mentioned elsewhere, RHCP is still young enough to crank out a few more albums and tour. Bruce Springsteen kept cranking until his 80s and sold the catalog for $500M

I assume the band is basically tapped out and ready to rest on laurels

indigodaddy•about 1 hour ago

Bruce is 76

piskov•about 3 hours ago

Sting reportedly got $300 mil back in 2022

0cf8612b2e1e•31 minutes ago

Is there any write up about how these economics work? How much does the catalog generate in a year?

The band must be past peak popularity, with listens continuing to decline year after year.

bix6•16 minutes ago

Someone writes an NPV and everyone says great! I looked into the math a bit when Bieber sold his. Didn’t seem worth it but what do I know.

reaperducer•24 minutes ago

listens continuing to decline year after year.

Streaming music is only the tip of the iceberg.

Most TV commercials are using 30-year-old songs. Add to that streaming series (think Stranger Things), movies, public spaces, internet radio, actual radio, and hundreds of other licensing opportunities await.

vondur•about 1 hour ago

Wow, I just a saw a YouTube video of Flea's house for sale in the LA suburb of La Crescenta for sale. Super nice house. Strangely I also saw Steve Vai's house for sale in LA at the same time. Also super nice house.

bigbuppo•about 1 hour ago

I'd rather it be WMG than IP Venture Partners Acquisition Round 7 LLC like some bands have done.

liveoneggs•about 3 hours ago

Every credit card rewards program will "give it away now" from now on

baggachipz•about 3 hours ago

$300 million, all songs about California

pavel_lishin•about 2 hours ago

Please no more California songs.

cpursley•34 minutes ago

This is unfair, they go All Around The World - from Alabama to Kazakhstan.

shwaj•about 3 hours ago

Relatively small amount compared to the billions we see thrown around for AI startups a couple of years old.

xnx•about 3 hours ago

True, but don't be fooled by imaginary "valuations" in the billions. RHCP is definitely getting paid real money.

rglover•about 1 hour ago

I guess the Uplift Mofo Party Plan worked...

perarneng•about 3 hours ago

Hard to tell what the value of music will be in 5 years

nine_k•about 3 hours ago

The value of guaranteed real stuff, with known provenance, still remains in the world of mass production; a "real Louis Vuitton bag" is still worth more than a very good copy, or a very good bag from an unknown designer.

But most of the market, is, of course, lower end. Probably "good enough" machine-produced music is going to dominate casual playlists, but some bands still will have large followings, and live show still be valuable.

bagels•about 2 hours ago

"Luis" Vuitton is the knockoff brand, but point taken.

nine_k•about 1 hour ago

Sorry, it was a typo; fixed. (French and Spanish orthographies differ here, but both names were accepted by the spellchecker.)

sevenzero•about 2 hours ago

Digital music? Probably non-existent. Live music played by actual musicians? Just as much.

fraywing•about 3 hours ago

Music and streaming is severely under attack from an effort/commercial viability perspective given tools like Suno[1]

Not exactly saying this is the reason for their sell, but I'd imagine a lot of professional musicians are feeling the desire to exit the industry.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/05/02/nx-s1-5804489/music-listeners...

Slow_Hand•17 minutes ago

As a record maker, I'd say record making is under attack from Suno about as much as novelists are under attack from Chat GPT. Both still require a crafts person to steer the tools, if they're to be used at all.

Yes there will be slop, but neither Suno nor GPT are close to making coherent work with creators with taste and good judgement.

mtoner23•about 2 hours ago

Can't wait for the RHCP biopic in 2028!

DwnVoteHoneyPot•about 2 hours ago

It'll be a Broadway play first to test it out.

thih9•about 2 hours ago

With James Corden as Flea.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cfudXO_vzWk&t=10m50s

trgn•about 1 hour ago

Feels cheap

gedy•about 3 hours ago

Good for them. I have a memory of first seeing them in their video True Men Don't Kill Coyotes† around 1984? and thinking "wow these guys are terrible". In hindsight, they were very 90s and pretty ahead of their time.

† https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC3j1pNXhSU

Forgeties79•about 3 hours ago

That honestly sounds like a good deal for the buyer at first blush but can’t say I’m an expert here

mxfh•about 3 hours ago

With the trend of things, this seems like good timing for the RHCP estates with a not so unlikely collapse of licensing revenue happening in the near future.

NoboruWataya•about 3 hours ago

I wonder if you tend to see more artists selling their back catalogues at times like this when some technological disruption is casting doubt on their ability to continue to generate income from them. David Bowie was famously one of the first artists to securitise music royalties, in 1997, basically at the dawn of the digital copying era.

freejazz•about 2 hours ago

Why would licensing revenue for hit songs collapse?

windowsrookie•about 1 hour ago

Most of the Red Hot Chili Peppers hit songs are pushing 30 years old. Their songs have already hit their peak popularity and will only be declining from now on.

This along with AI generated music flooding the market. An AI generated song has already been #1 on the iTunes Charts. AI generated music is only going to get better and more popular.

Future TV shows/movies/etc. will likely just be generating their own music, rather than paying royalties for "hit songs".

thierrydamiba•about 3 hours ago

This is as close as you get to a win win in life.

throw0101c•about 3 hours ago

PSA: this article is re-reporting the original story at:

> Rumours of the Chilis selling their catalogue first arose last year, with sources telling Billboard that the rockers were allegedly seeking around $350 million. Now, The Hollywood Reporter reports[1] that the band has finally made a deal with Warner Music Group, with the label paying over $300 million for all of the band’s master recordings.

[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/...

tomhow•about 3 hours ago

Thanks, we updated the linkl.

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