Sony Music clearly has money to burn on shoring up its heritage musical assets for decades to come.

It reportedly recently paid US$1 billion (A$1.48 billion) for the rights to Queen’s music, and now it has confirmed the purchase of Pink Floyd’s back catalogue. The figure being bandied about is US$400 million (A$593 million).

The boss of Sony Music has compared buying the rights to Floyd’s music as akin to owning a Picasso painting.

“There is no price as far as I’m concerned, for Pink Floyd,” said Rob Stringer, the Chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment. “What price is a Picasso?”

Stringer made the comments during an interview at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference in Los Angeles.

“So they felt like good fits and quite frankly, I didn’t want any of those artists to go anywhere else,” he added. “Bruce Springsteen’s been on Columbia his whole career.”

Along with the recorded music comes ownership of merchandising, name, image and likeness.

What Sony doesn’t get is the hugely lucrative publishing rights to the songs, which include Money, Wish You Were Here, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Another Brick In The Wall and Comfortably Numb. 

Femme à la montre, by Pablo Picasso. Oil on canvas.

Pink Floyd has followed in the footsteps of the likes of Springsteen, KISS, Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Katy Perry, Bob Dylan, Justin Bieber and the late David Bowie in selling off recorded rights and/or publishing rights.

“Stringer said the music will have a long life in the digital age, on streaming services but also for use in movies, Broadway shows and other artistic endeavours,” Bloomberg reported. 

As for Pablo the painter, his 1932 painting “Femme à la montre” sold for more than US$139 million (A$206 million) last year at a Sotheby’s New York auction – and it was the most expensive piece of art sold at a public auction anywhere in the world in 2023.