Calvin Harris Sells Publishing Catalog to Vine Investments for Close To $100 Million

Calvin Harris’s discography goes back more than a decade, having dropped his debut album I Created Disco in 2007. Since then, he’s worked with Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith, Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, Big Sean, Khalid, and Pharrell Williams, among many others, across over 150 songs.

Now, Vine Alternative Investments announced this past Thursday that it has acquired Harris’s complete song catalog. Though specific terms of the deal weren’t made public, one source told Variety that the price was close to $100 million.

“We approach the music space the same way we have always approached the film and TV space, with an eye for and an appreciation of, the world’s most iconic content,” said Rob Amir, Vine’s partner in charge of music sector investments. “The addition of Calvin Harris hits across multiple genres to our catalogs is a continuation of our pursuit of building a multi-genre media ecosystem that not only respects, but honors the artists we partner with.”

Says Variety, while the music industry in general has been hurting during COVID, the music publishing side of the business has actually seen an increase in value.

“You clearly want as much history as possible,” Alun Simpson of Eleven Advisory, an offshoot of legal firm Lewis Silkin, told Synchtank in an interview last year. “If there are just two or three years, that is not great but you can work with it. But if there are eight or ten years, that gives you a decently long history. If there is more than that then even better. Looking at it from that perspective, the longer the better.”

In terms of the pandemic, though music is still being regularly released, it appears that the value of older music is growing even more in the absence of live shows.