Iggy Rose was one of Syd Barrett's girlfriends in 1969. She is most famous for being the model on the Syd Barrett album: 'The Madcap Laughs'. Nicknamed Iggy the Eskimo, it was rumoured she was part Inuit.

One day, in 1969, she disappeared out of Syd's life and was not heard of ever since.

Almost four decades later, the Holy Church of Iggy the Inuit started to mess with things. Its five years mission: to find Iggy and bring her back to the spotlights. And guess what, with some invaluable help from many, many friends... we did...

Beginning 2017 Iggy Rose decided to leave social media. She died peacefully on the 13th of December 2017, just before her seventieth birthday. Wishing you good luck, Iggy, wherever you are.

Iggy Rose 1947 - 2017: Eskimos and Unicorns.

Unless you have been living on the dark side of the moon for the last couple of months, you may have noted that Pink Floyd sold its catalogue to Sony for about 400 million dollars.

It was the Financial Times that had the scoop on the first of October, closely followed by Music Business Worldwide. A bunch of other websites reported about it later, but generally, they all repeated the same unclear and ambiguous message.

Both Pink Floyd and Sony didn’t want to divulge too much; they were, to quote one of the geniuses of the band, all tight lips and cold feet.

What the Financial Times did find out was the following. The Sony deal includes Pink Floyd’s recorded music, the band name, and the artists’ ‘likeness’. Sony acquired the recorded rights, but not the songwriting itself.

According to Music Business Worldwide, the catalogue first went up for sale in 2022, with Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, BMG, Hipgnosis, Concord, Primary Wave, and Blackstone as possible buyers. (That Hipgnosis is not Storm’s Hipgnosis.)

The internal bickering between David Gilmour and Roger Waters, which has been going on for years, delayed the negotiations. As one source said, ‘They don’t need a reason to disagree with each other’. The price went down by about 100 million because of just that.

But what does this all mean? What is Sony allowed to do, and what is it not allowed to do? Will we see a Cirque du Soleil treatment, for instance?

A lot is not known; does this deal include solo material or only the canon Pink Floyd tunes? What about the unreleased tracks that didn’t make it on The Early Years or The Later Years?

On the Steve Hoffman Music forum, there is a long discussion thread about this deal, but one has to weed through the many puns (money, it’s a gas) to find relevant information.

Mr. Grumpy summarised the vague press releases as follows:

[It is] a bit confusing. I infer that the songwriters will retain their publishing and continue to receive their songwriting royalties.

I imagine there are a ton of vetoes — and overrides — written into these sorts of deals. The copyright pertains to the composition itself. Any recorded material appears to be Sony's now. But we'd have to wade through a confidential thousand-page document to find out for sure.

The Sony deal led to a great deal of speculation. Here is something of an overview.

♫ - With publishing remaining with the Floyd members, they can basically veto any release. Not a good deal for Sony. (JuhaS)

♫ - The artist owning his copyright can veto the release of his protected work, so I wouldn't be too optimistic about a sudden outpouring of archive material... (Josip)

♫ - Before anyone gets too excited about this, we don’t know how this will cover any unreleased material. Truth is, it probably won’t. (Nuno Bento)
♫ - What will happen for sure is that a year from now we’re going to have coloured vinyl reissues of all the albums. (Nuno Bento)
♫ - As for PF Records, the well had run dry. There was not much more to release that David and Roger wanted to release, hence the desperate attempts at UV vinyl like the recent Dark Side reissue. (Nuno Bento)

♫ - [400 million is] a surprisingly large amount, considering it doesn't include publishing. Master rights without publishing rights makes the cash cow of video licensing tricky. (Kwadguy)

♫ - Expect Pink Floyd songs to begin appearing more often through licensing agreements in movies, TV shows, gaming, and other media. (Zeki)

♫ - The Floyd revenue is $40+ million a year. Licensing their catalogue to new revenue streams (commercials, film soundtracks, etc.) will likely boost that number. Sony is playing the long game here. (Rontoon)

It all depends, claimed Kwadguy:

There are two types of rights:
Master rights
Publishing rights
If you are releasing or distributing audio recordings, you only need the master rights. ‘Mechanical’ publishing royalties are paid, and the publishing owner can't stop you.
If you are releasing or distributing video content of any type, you need BOTH master and publishing rights. And there is no mechanical royalty table. So you have to negotiate both types of rights—separately—from the rights owners. Either rights owner can ask for anything they want, or they can outright refuse for any reason.
So just because Sony now has master rights does not mean Sony or anyone else can license or use this material in video applications without ALSO negotiating with the publisher.

The first real example of the deal may be the 50th anniversary of Wish You Were Here, next year. What will Sony try to publish, knowing that all fans already have an Immersion box with marbles?

As the Church has repeated many times in the past, next to the ‘artistic’ side of creating music, there is also a business side. The gravy train, so to speak.

On that same forum, PH416156 pointed to the Company Check website that lists all UK companies, as you may have guessed by its name.

On 30 September 2024, the three remaining (ex-)members of Pink Floyd (and some personnel like an accountant) resigned from several Pink Floyd-related companies, and a new director was appointed.

Basically, there are two different Pink Floyd entities. One that deals with the band before the split and one when the band reunited in 1987.

Up till 30 September, Roger Waters was a co-director of the ‘classic’ Floyd, together with David Gilmour and Nick Mason. The latter two could also be found in the post-1987 companies.

The old directors have been replaced by one man: Charles Henry Stanford. According to LinkedIn, he is a Sony Music executive.

He describes himself as follows (info taken on 1/12/2024):

I've been working in the music industry for over 20 years, specialising in marketing. During that time I've proven myself to be a highly motivated, capable and successful marketing executive.
I currently have an international role at Sony Music, managing artist campaigns, product series initiatives and Sony's catalogue pricing for the world ex. US.  
I've worked with a diverse range of artists and catalogues including Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jimi Hendrix & Elvis Presley, winning industry awards for creative marketing campaigns.
Specialties: International marketing, creative solutions, product range development, artist liaison.

According to Company Check, Charles Stanford holds 23 appointments, including the Queen portfolio that was sold to Sony this year for 1 billion dollars.

At the time of writing, Stanford can be found as the director of 7 Floydian entities:
PINK FLOYD MUSIC LIMITED (01079610)
PINK FLOYD (1987) LIMITED (02103633)
PINK FLOYD RECORDS LIMITED (09696592)
PINK FLOYD RECORDS (1987) LIMITED (09696596)
PFM EXHIBITIONS LIMITED (09510247)
PF (1987) EXHIBITIONS LIMITED (09510236)
PINK FLOYD LIMITED (09132622)

We can only hope for the best and fear for the worst. Make the fans happy, Sony!

Who needs information
When you're working underground?
Just give me confirmation
We could win a million pounds.

Many thanks: Steve Hoffmann Music Forum and its many members, Josip, JuhaS, Kwadguy, Mr. Grumpy, Nuno Bento, Rontoon, Zeki.
♥ Iggy ♥ Libby ♥