Recently, the name Pink Floyd made the rounds again, especially with regard to Roger Waters.

The co-founder of the British band is going on tour next spring.

In view of his statements on the Ukraine war and his long-known support for the Israel boycott movement BDS, there are discussions at the German tour stops as to whether the performances should be cancelled.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

The fact that Pink Floyd is still gambling about a rights package - it should be about the rights to the recordings and the rights to the name, picture and likeness, but not about the author's rights - usually has to be at the back.

In any case, little seems to be happening here.

Bloomberg recently reported on disputes between Waters and his former colleagues and the resulting delays.

Of course, catalogs continue to be sold and the public does not find out anything about all deals.

One of the comparatively large ones was only announced at the end of September: Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford sold an extensive package to the US music company Concord Music.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the price was more than $300 million - although this information should always be treated with a certain degree of caution.

In any case, financial details are rarely disclosed by the parties involved.

Fools Garden as the next Bertelsmann purchase

This also applies to the latest acquisition of Bertelsmann's music division BMG, which is not in the Dylan, Springsteen or Genesis ranks, but underlines how diverse the market is - and how much catalogs of more local acts (for lower prices, of course ) are of interest in the industry: In the future, BMG will hold the rights to many recordings by the band Fools Garden.

As the company announced on Thursday, the agreement includes the rights to the recordings of all albums that were released between 1991 and 2003

.

These included Fool's Garden (1991), Once In A Blue Moon (1993), number one album Dish Of The Day (1995), Go And Ask Peggy For The Principal Thing (1997) , For Sale (2000) and 25 Miles To Kissimmee (2003).

The band, founded in 1991, is best known for their song "Lemon Tree" from 1995. It currently has around 345 million streams on Spotify alone.

Other releases by the band were no longer able to match the success of the song and the accompanying album “Dish Of The Day”.

Their latest album "Captain... Coast Is Clear" was released at the end of 2021. Last year, the German DJ and producer Alle Farben also released its own version of "Lemon Tree", which the band was also involved with.

"Lemon Tree" was written by Peter Freudenthaler and Volker Hinkel.

The rights to the texts and compositions, which are to be considered separately from the recording, are not part of the acquisition.

This is particularly important with a view to cover versions of the super hit or for licensing the songs to be used in films, advertising or series.