Britney Spears has sold the rights to her entire music catalogue, it has been reported.
That’s according to Rolling Stone, with “multiple sources” telling the publication that Primary Wave is taking over the pop star’s ownership share of her many hit tracks.
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These include ‘…Baby One More Time’, ‘Toxic’, ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’, ‘(You Drive Me) Crazy’, ‘Womanizer’, ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’, ‘Lucky’, ‘I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman’ and more.
The deal is said to have gone through on December 30, and was first reported by TMZ. It is not yet known how much Spears sold her rights for, but the outlet said it was a “landmark deal”.
The figure is reportedly similar to Justin Bieber’s reported $200million agreement with Hipgnosis Songs Capital to sell his share of the rights to his catalogue in 2023.
Primary Wave describes itself as “the leading independent publisher of iconic and legendary music in the world”, adding: “The company is home to some of the most iconic songwriters, artists, and record labels across the history of recorded music.”
Stevie Nicks sold her publishing rights to the company in 2020. Primary Wave has also made deals with the estates of Prince, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley and The Cars frontman Ric Ocasek.
The estate of The Notorious B.I.G. sold a stake in the late rapper’s music publishing and recordings and certain name, image, and likeness rights to Primary Wave last March.
In 2023, it took over an exhaustive slate of rights to The Doors’ publishing catalogue, master recordings, trademarks, merchandising options and even income in a “monumental acquisition”. The previous year, the estates of late Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley and original bassist Mike Starr sold their music rights to Primary Wave.
Recent years have seen numerous other legacy acts make hugely lucrative acquisition deals with other companies, including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac‘s Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie, and Phil Collins and Genesis.
Last month, Deftones became the latest high-profile artist to sell the bulk of their music rights to a major publisher. Other musicians who have sold their rights include Slipknot, Jack White, Deadmau5, Pink Floyd, Shakira, Queen, Rod Stewart, John Legend and Midge Ure.
Britney Spears hasn’t released a studio album since 2016’s ‘Glory’. However, an outtake from that record, ‘Swimming In The Stars’, arrived in late 2020. She returned in 2022 to collaborate with Elton John on the song ‘Hold Me Closer’. The joint single marked her first release since her 13-year conservatorship ended the previous year. In 2023, she teamed up with Will.i.am on the track ‘Mind Your Business’.
Last month, the singer said she would “never perform in the US again because of extremely sensitive reasons”, but hinted at performances “in the UK and Australia very soon”.
Spears told fans in 2024 that she would “never return to the music industry” while addressing rumours about her future music projects.
In other news, the pop star recently said that she “admire[s] and look[s] up to Madonna more than anyone”. The Instagram post followed her return to the platform in November, shortly after deleting her account.
