Leonard Cohen’s estate sells his music catalogue

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Hipgnosis Song Management has acquired the music catalogue of Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.

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“Hipgnosis has acquired rights in all 278 songs and derivatives written by Leonard Cohen, including Hallelujah,” the company said in a press release.

Hipgnosis now retains ownership of 100% of the copyrights, “publisher’s share” and “songwriter’s share” of royalties in the Old Ideas catalogue which consists of all 67 songs written by Leonard Cohen from 2001 until his death, at age 82, in 2016.

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“To now be the custodians and managers of Leonard Cohen’s incomparable songs is a wonderful yet very serious responsibility that we approach with excitement and fully understand the importance of. Leonard wrote words and songs that have changed our lives, none more so obvious than Hallelujah but there are so many more that we look forward to reminding the world of on a daily basis,” Merck Mercuriadis, founder and CEO of Hipgnosis Song Management, said.

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The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934 and released his first studio album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, in 1967. His final LP, Thanks for the Dance, was released posthumously in 2019.

A flurry of artists have sold the rights to their music in recent years. In December, Bruce Springsteen sold his catalogue to Sony Music Entertainment for an estimated $550 million. Sting followed suit last month, inking a deal with Universal Music Group for his entire output as a songwriter, including his work with the Police, for a rumoured $300 million.

In 2020, Bob Dylan signed away his entire catalogue of more than 600 copyrights with a price tag said to be between $300 million to $400 million.

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The Cohen Estate was represented in the deal by his longtime manager, Robert Kory, KR Capital Partners and Jonathan Friedman at Stubbs, Alderton and Markiles LLP.

“Merck Mercuriadis is unique in the music publishing world with his background as an artist manager. We know he cares about artists, and as a Quebecois he has a particularly deep appreciation of Leonard’s unique status in popular music,” Kory said. “The catalogue is in good hands.”

Aside from Hallelujah, Cohen is also known for other hits including So Long Marianne, Suzanne, Bird on a Wire, Famous Blue Raincoat, I’m Your Man, Democracy, Dance Me to the End of Love, Everybody Knows, First We Take Manhattan, Coming Home and most recently, You Want it Darker.

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