People used to argue with me that he was rich....lol. Don't let blowing in the wind deceive you, he is one rich dude.

https://www.newser.com/story/299698...;utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top

Who would be arguing that Dylan wasn't rich? He was a multi millionaire back in the 60's. Back when a million actually meant something.
It's always been a fact that visability is viability, and anyone who has ever had music everywhere, on radio, on television, in motion pictures, being covered by countless artists, and becomes an ICON, he is rich.

I had a friend that became "publisher of the year" many years ago, who dissapeared from the business for a few years. He had had back to back songs of the year, and was involved with a lot of writers and artists. I never knew what happened, he just was not around any more. Years later, and now this is about 15 years ago, he popped back up out of no where. I ran into him in a resturant and asked him where he had been. He said he was making more money than ever by arranging catalogue sales. He told me back then that the real money in the future would be songwriter's, particularly the famous ones, would be in catelogue sales.
That is why you see pretty much every notable writer selling their catelogues. They can't really make much from indivually and don't really want the headache of dealing with the music industry of today. So sell them, make a huge amount of money (Stevie Nicks catelogue went for about 100 million) and be out and done.
So what if your song ends up being the theme song of a douche commercial? Can't blame em.

So for any of you aspiring writers now, go get a few hits that make a couple of grand, then sell your entire catelog off for milions. Nothing to it. But make sure your songs fit the advertising products of the future. Ain't the music business fun?

MAB

David Bowie sold 'Bonds' on Wall Street for ownership or use of his music, in the years before he died.
The real lesson here is that Songs can be worth a fortune, even the scrap of paper you wrote the Lyric on for the first time, or the towel you mopped your brow with, your image, but only if it has merit as a Song, in the judgment of the 'buying' public, those who are willing to lay down the coin of the realm to 'own' it, for their re-listening pleasure, or for 'use' in a Movie or TV Soundtrack or Commercial Advertising. Being the owner of the Copyright AND the Master recording is your Company, and your Company can engage in Commerce with other Companies, for fun and profit. It's the brave new world of the entrepreneurial Song-Writer, transitioning from avocational hobbyist to 'Business Man' or 'Woman'.

Could be true but I don't see that happening in the future. I think Catalogs are going through their heyday as well. Once the major artists are sold off, anything newer will probably not be worth much. I tend to think that we will reach a point where music itself will be close to worthless. Take away the incentive to pay for it, increase the supply indefinately and it is pretty worthless. Much like the era of classic cars. Not many are going to pay much for a 75 Chrysler Cordoba. I think the majority of what has been coming out for 20 years and since will not have the same value. And the consumer will demonstrate that with their purchasing dollars. I've never seen anyone be able to monetize "free."

Yeah, square one is, "Write good Songs."
So much of what I hear I have no desire to ever hear again so my money stays in my pocket.

Well I can SEE why some people don't think he's rich, but I also know better.

One, he doesn't look rich, barely combs his hair, looks raggedy, they said on we are the world video, only he and Springsteen showed up with no bodyguards, dressed to fix cars, etc.

But also his songs, I mean blowing in the wind is a classic humanity song, just doesn't seem like their should be a price on it. And really, he never wrote for any market, or any trend, or tried to capture the top 40, it kind of just happened for him.

So people think people with integrity don't make ally of money.

But the big give away for me is that his songs have been covered by just about everyone, from Appalachian artists to metal artists. From jazz to punk rock,
Some of the covers became such massive hits like byrds Mr tambourine man, and Hendrix watchtower, he said when he heard Hendrixs watchtower, he never wanted to hear it his way again!

Hendrix cover probably made Dylan millions alone.

Plus, he's been touring non stop forever, but again, it goes unnoticed, people know Taylor swift is on tour, but they dont realize Dylan is lol

Dude is crazy rich!

The only surprise to me was that it wasn't worth more money. That is quite a catalog of standards. He's 80 so his kids will get the money in the end, but selling it must have tax benefits.

My questions are, what did he actually sell? His publishing share? His writing share? 100% of it all? Often labels and publishers already have a large chunk of it. I have no idea what he sold, but the number seemed low to me. Not that he needs the money or that even his kid(s) need it. He must have had staff who oversaw it all. I just wonder the net benefit of selling unless they really think the economies of the world are going to crater so get it now, buy hard assets, a safe harbor somewhere and get out of dodge. Most of NZ has been bought by Billionaires. That is where they seem to be headed. They've built many deep bunkers under the mountains fit for the dwarves of middle earth. There's been several close calls from large space rocks, maybe they know something we don't.

We'll see.

I guess in this day and age one should cash in while they can.
There was the discrepancy when Michael Jackson purchased The Beatles catalog.
What is made out of intellectual property can be real subjective.

I looked into covering a Dylan song about 15 years ago when I was first starting out. I couldn't believe how long the list of artists were that covered his songs... and I'm not even talking about his most famous or commonly popular work. Even obscure tunes that most people do not really know, still had pages of artists covering those songs. If you had told me he sold his catalogue for a billion dollars I would believe it. There is just so much content there. Just constant radio, TV and movie requests. There are so many songs out there that Dylan wrote or co-wrote that people are oblivious that he had anything to do with it. Couple examples... Garth Brooks "To Make You Feel My Love" or "Wagon Wheel" (Old Crowe Medicine Show)... there are way more than that. It's pretty common for a lot of new artists to dig through his material looking for something to help get them going. Bob still writes, too. He still puts out new albums of music.