Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, plus 10 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award during his 60-year career On Monday December 7 2020, the Universal Music Publishing Group announced that it had signed a landmark deal to purchase Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog — including world-changing classics like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and “Like a Rolling Stone” — in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of the music publishing rights of a single act. After fifty-eight years, more than 600 songs and one Nobel Prize, the cultural and economic value of Dylan’s songwriting corpus have both grown exponentially. Dylan, 79, who has long controlled the majority of his own songwriting copyrights. The price was not disclosed, but is estimated at more than $300 million. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Not only has his work stood the test of time, but most of his songs were written by Dylan alone and have been frequently covered by other artists — with each use generating royalties. According to Universal, Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times. In exchange for its payment to Dylan, Universal, a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, will collect all future income from the songs. The new deal with Universal does not include any of Dylan’s unreleased songs. It also doesn’t cover any work Dylan writes in the future, leaving open the possibility that he could choose to work with another publisher for that material. He has been married twice, welcoming five biological children and raising one adopted daughter. As of 2023 he had eight grand children.