Britney Spears has sold the rights to her entire music catalogue.
Primary Wave will take over Spears’ ownership share of her many hit songs, including Baby One More Time, Oops! I Did It Again, Lucky, and I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman, among many others.
TMZ reported that the deal was finalised on 30 December. It is not clear for how much Spears sold her rights, but a source told the outlet it was on par with Justin Bieber’s reported $200 million (£147 million) deal to sell his back catalogue to Hipgnosis Songs Capital in 2023.
Rolling Stone reports that Primary Wave has been in the business of snapping up catalogues from some of music’s biggest names.
Last March, it bought a 50 per cent stake in The Notorious B.I.G.’s estate, and in the past has reached deals with the estates of Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, Prince, and Cars leader Ric Ocasek. In 2020, Stevie Nicks sold her publishing rights to the company.
Acquisition deals can be extremely lucrative for artists, allowing them to receive a significant payout and relieving them of a bottomless pit of administration.
Spears, who was released from a controversial 13-year conservatorship in 2021, has not released a studio album since 2016’s Glory. She recently announced that she would not perform in the US again.
“I will never perform in the US again because of extremely sensitive reasons,” she penned on Instagram in January. “But I hope to be sitting on a stool with a red rose in my hair, in a bun, performing with my son in the UK and Australia very soon.”
