Britney Spears Sells Music Catalog

The Princess of Pop Britney Spears has become the latest big name artist to cash in on her catalogue of hits and sell an unclear number of other rights to Primary Wave.

While the deal details were unclear —and likely under iron-clad non-disclosure agreements — it is estimated to be in the low nine figures.

TMZ, which first reported the news based on legal documents it has viewed, states that she sold “her ownership share of her catalog” to Primary Wave.

The outlet notes that the price was not included in the legal documents.

Since Sony Music owns and controls the rights to Spears’ entire recorded music catalog, it seems likely she sold the rights to her artist royalties.

The popstar has songwriting credits on nearly 40 of the songs in her catalog, although few of them were major hits apart from the ballad “Everytime” and fan favorites like “Me Against the Music,” “S&M,” “Work Bitch!,” and others.

There are a number of options for exploitation of the catalog, including the forthcoming biopic based on her memoir “The Woman in Me,” which landed at Universal Pictures in 2024. A jukebox musical based on her hits, “Once Upon a One More Time,” premiered on Broadway in 2023.

Spears has not released an album since 2016’s “Glory” nor has performed in concert since October 2018, closing out her “Piece of Me” tour with a final show at the Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.

She had been set to return to Las Vegas in 2019 for a second residency, “Domination,” following the success of her first residency, “Britney Spears: Piece of Me,” which concluded in 2017. However, she ultimately postponed the “Domination” show and stepped away from performing indefinitely.

Spears was released from her 13-year conservatorship in 2021 and has kept a relatively low public profile since then, although she frequently posts free-form and sometimes-unnerving notes and videos of herself dancing at home on social media.

Just over a month ago, she quashed fans’ hopes for a concert tour when she wrote on social media that she “will never perform in the U.S. again” for “extremely sensitive reasons,” although she apparently left the door open to performing in other territories.

“I will never perform in the U.S. again because of extremely sensitive reasons but I hope to be sitting on a stool with a red rose in my hair, in a bun, performing with my son… in the UK and AUSTRALIA very soon,” she wrote.

In the post, the singer also shared a throwback photo of herself sitting beside a white Yamaha piano, writing in the caption, “Sending this piano to my son this year!!! Interestingly enough, I dance on IG to heal things in my body that people have no idea about. Yup and it’s embarrassing sometimes… but I walked through the fire to save my life.”