Bob Dylan has sold his entire song catalog to Universal Music Group, the record company announced on Monday.
The deal means that more than 600 of Dylan’s copyrighted songs written over nearly 60 years — “from 1962’s cultural milestone ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ to this year’s epic ‘Murder Most Foul,’” the press release said — are now owned by the media giant.
“It is no exaggeration to say that his vast body of work has captured the love and admiration of billions of people all around the world,” Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, said in the press release announcing the deal.
“I have no doubt that decades, even centuries from now, the words and music of Bob Dylan will continue to be sung and played—and cherished—everywhere,” Grainge added.
Last month, a cache of Dylan records and memorabilia sold at auction for roughly a half-million dollars. Among the artifacts was a transcribed interview in which Dylan revealed that he wrote the lyrics for Barbra Streisand’s “Lay Lady Lay.”
In 2012, Dylan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature — but the committee could not find him and he skipped a meeting with Obama to celebrate his win.
Eventually, the Nobel Committee found him and Dylan accepted his Nobel Prize in March 2017.
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