According to reports, the mysterious singer left behind a trove of unreleased songs in his vault.The release of these songs could translate into substantial sales and revenue for his estate in the future.
The presence of a vault of unreleased Prince songs has been rumored for years. Its presence was confirmed last year by a BBC documentary maker, who said that there was enough material in the vault for Prince to put out an album every year for the next hundred years.
In addition to this, the vault contains two feature-length movies and an assortment of promotional videos. How much is that worth? Let’s do a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Given that Prince’s album sales–prior to his post-mortem surge–averaged over 2.7 million albums sold, and assuming a cost $10 per album, with 8% royalties (the typical artist’s cut), 100 new albums would theoretically net $216 million for Prince’s estate. And this is most likely a very conservative estimate.
Prince’s intentions for the vault are still unknown. However, it could represent a considerable sum of money for Prince’s estate.
A Post-Death Resurgence
Sales of Prince’s albums had flagged in recent times. But, death seems to have brought about a resurgence of interest in his work. Prince sold 1.1 million songs and 231,800 albums on Thursday alone. He was responsible for the top 16 recordings on Apple’s iTunes store and 19 of the top 20 albums on Amazon’s digital music store. Billboard predicts that the The Very Best of Prince will become the No.1 Album on its Billboard 200 album listings. All of this interest and attention will help pique listener interest in Prince’s catalog of unreleased songs.
To be sure, Prince is not the only artist whose estate is raking in the moolah after his death. His contemporary Michael Jackson has earned more than $1 billion since his death in 2009. According to a Forbes article, a majority of that money came “from two Cirque Du Soleil shows, his own music and publishing revenues and his half of the Sony/ATV publishing catalog.” The earning amount becomes even more dramatic when you consider that Jackson was bankrupt when he died.
How The Vault Could Help Prince’s Estate
In Prince’s case, his estate will also benefit from his stance towards copyright. Throughout his life, the Minneapolis-based star was an avowed supporter of artiste rights. He maintained tight control over copyright for his songs and was a one-man band in that he played most of the instruments in his band. In recent times, he had come out against streaming services, such as Spotify, which failed to adequately compensate artists. As a result of this, his songs are only available on Jay-Z-owned Tidal online. They are also yet to be used for product promotion and in commercial shows. Analysts estimate that the value of his estate will soar in the future.
If it is commercialized, the vault could represent a significant part of that fortune. Unreleased songs will form a major chunk of that fortune. Music videos using unreleased footage from the vault will attract audiences and drive sales. In addition, Prince’s personality and songs immediately lend themselves to broad possibilities, including live shows celebrating his life and holograms and virtual reality shows using footage from the vault. In turn, they could turn out to be money spinners for his estate. As an example, consider that Cirque Du Soleil’s two Michael Jackson-themed shows had already garnered $260 million in ticket sales by 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment