I am personally torn about this issue.
If a musician, or band, is struggling financially, and has unexpected expenses, such as health issues, then I could understand the need to sell. However, if a band, or musician, is still successful and making money without financial struggles, I am less inclined to look favorably upon it.
Unless there is a way, where the band, or musician, can put a stipulation in the contract that they have a say where their music, likeness, etc. maybe used, once that outside entity takes over the intellectual property, they can easily cheapen a band’s or musician’s legacy, by over saturating the market with their music. For example, using their songs in TV commercials, movies, video games, radio jingles, etc.
Long before selling off their wares, KISS, decided to market the heck out of themselves all on their own. So, selling off their catalog, came as little surprise.
Finally, I remember hearing both Judas Priest‘s Hellion, and You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, on car commercials, and it made me wince. But, then again, I have heard lots of our music in Super Markets. Just yesterday, I heard Ratt‘s Way Cool Junior in Stop And Shop, and that also made me cringe-LOL! Nothing like hearing arena rock while shopping for grapes.
One Response
Personally, unless I was in such dire financial straits that I had zero other options, I would never sell off my entire music catalog. I don’t know how much money people need nowadays, but pretty much everything has come to revolve around money. Kids are being raised in daycares while both parents work because cost of living has skyrocketed because corporation after corporation has to have more money. Greed is evil. It has consumed literally every person, child and infant in the world. Work work work. Career career career. Family time has become increasingly minuscule. People are forced to travel, work on holidays, work on weekends. But most of us aren’t celebrities and so we get pennies while our efforts put big bucks into the pockets of the wealthy who spend most of their time at resorts on beaches and golf courses.