contracts – protecting rights, minimizing risk, and negotiating fair terms in the U.S. and globally.
Your catalog is your greatest asset – and in a sale or financing, every song and master has to be accounted for. When you need a music catalog acquisition lawyer, ChaseLawyers® is ready to help. Our Miami and New York attorneys guide investors, artists, songwriters, labels, and publishers through the legal side of buying, selling, and borrowing against music rights, from the first term sheet to the day royalties start flowing to the new owner.
We focus on what makes or breaks a catalog deal: clean chain of title, accurate registrations, reliable royalty data, and a purchase or loan agreement that allocates risk fairly. Whether the deal covers master rights, publishing rights, or both, we safeguard your interests at every step.
contracts — protecting artists, producers, and their rights across the U.S. and globally.
What Do We Offer You?
Legal Services for Music Catalog Deals
Catalog Due Diligence – Know Exactly What You’re Buying
A catalog is only as valuable as the rights behind it. Our due diligence helps you:
- Trace chain of title for each composition and master recording.
- Review assignments, split sheets, producer agreements, and sample clearances.
- Match PRO, The MLC, and SoundExchange registrations against royalty statements.
- Uncover liens, pending claims, unrecouped advances, and termination exposure.
Acquisition & Sale Agreements – Close With Clarity
The purchase agreement is where risk gets allocated, so every clause matters. We help buyers and sellers:
- Draft and negotiate letters of intent and asset purchase agreements.
- Structure the price with holdbacks, escrow, or earn-outs.
- Negotiate representations, warranties, and indemnities.
- Deliver assignments, letters of direction, and registration updates at closing.
Catalog Financing – Unlock Capital Without Selling
You don’t always have to sell to put your catalog to work. We help borrowers and lenders:
- Structure royalty-backed loans and catalog-secured credit facilities.
- Negotiate covenants, events of default, and lender step-in rights.
- Document security interests through UCC-1 filings and Copyright Office recordation where appropriate.
- Compare a financing with a full or partial sale so you can choose the right path.
How It Works
How We Work – Our Catalog Acquisition Process
- Tell us whether you’re buying, selling, or financing.
- Outline the catalog: masters, publishing, or both, and the timeline.
- Hear back from our team within 24 hours.
- Choose the structure: full purchase, partial interest, or financing.
- Coordinate with your valuation advisors, accountants, and lenders.
- Build the due diligence plan and document request list.
- Review chain of title, contracts, and registrations work by work.
- Flag problem works and cure missing paperwork where possible.
- Carve out or re-price rights that can’t be confirmed.
- Finalize the purchase or loan documents and escrow terms.
- Send letters of direction to PROs, publishers, labels, and distributors.
- Update copyright and collection society records.
- Audit royalty statements and pursue underpayments.
- Negotiate licensing to grow catalog income.
- Advise on add-on acquisitions, refinancing, or resale.
From first-time buyers to private equity firms and royalty lenders, we help you confirm what you’re acquiring or lending against and document terms that protect your capital.
Selling or financing your life’s work is a big decision. We help you understand offers, protect rights you want to keep, and negotiate terms that reflect the value of your music.
Whether you’re rolling up catalogs, selling a division, or building a rights-management platform, we provide transaction counsel that keeps ownership clear and deals moving.
Our Reviews
FAQ
Music Catalog Acquisition FAQs
Clear answers for investors, rights owners, and lenders weighing a catalog purchase, sale, or financing. For advice on a specific deal, book a free consultation.
A music catalog acquisition lawyer confirms that the seller actually owns the rights being sold, identifies legal risks, and negotiates the purchase agreement. That includes chain-of-title review, drafting representations, warranties, and indemnities, and handling assignments and letters of direction at closing. The goal is for the buyer to receive the rights and income it paid for.
Key checks include chain of title for every song and master, songwriter and producer agreements, split sheets, and registrations with PROs, The MLC, and SoundExchange. Diligence also looks at sample and license clearances, unrecouped advances, liens, pending claims, audit history, and copyright termination exposure. Problems found early can be cured, excluded, or reflected in the price.
Catalogs are often priced as a multiple of historical earnings, such as net publisher’s share (NPS) for publishing or net label share (NLS) for masters. The multiple can reflect the age and stability of income, genre, how long the rights last, and legal risks. Valuation advisors model the numbers; legal due diligence confirms which income the buyer can actually rely on.
Master rights cover the sound recordings, which usually earn through streaming, sales, and master licensing. Publishing rights cover the underlying compositions – melody and lyrics – which earn performance, mechanical, and sync income. The two are often owned by different parties, so a catalog deal must spell out exactly which rights, and which income streams, are being transferred.
No deal is risk-free, but careful drafting can shift much of that risk. Buyers commonly rely on detailed representations and warranties, indemnities, escrow or holdback amounts, and exclusion lists for disputed works. Curing missing assignments and obtaining signed letters of direction before closing also helps royalties move to the new owner without gaps.
We issue letters of direction to PROs, publishers, labels, distributors, and administrators; update registrations; and, if financing, implement lockbox/collection account management so payments flow correctly from day one.
Under Sections 203 and 304 of the U.S. Copyright Act, authors and certain heirs may be able to terminate some copyright transfers decades after they were made, generally by serving notice within set time windows. Works made for hire are generally excluded. Because termination can shorten how long a buyer keeps certain rights, we map each work’s exposure before pricing the deal.
Often, yes. Some lenders offer loans secured by copyrights and future royalty income. These deals usually include a security interest in the catalog, financial covenants, collection account arrangements, and rights for the lender if the loan goes into default. A lawyer can help you compare loan terms with a sale and negotiate protections for your ownership.
At closing, the parties sign letters of direction instructing PROs, The MLC, SoundExchange, publishers, labels, distributors, and administrators to pay the new owner. Registrations and metadata are updated, and the agreement usually addresses income earned before closing but paid afterward. In financings, royalties may be routed to a controlled collection account instead.
Those works need extra review. We check sample and interpolation licenses, co-writer agreements and splits, and whether mechanical licenses and registrations are in place. If permissions are missing, they can sometimes be obtained before closing; otherwise, the affected works may be excluded or the price adjusted to reflect the risk.
They can. Foreign income may flow through local collection societies and sub-publishers, involve neighboring rights for recordings, and be subject to withholding tax. Some countries also treat moral rights differently. Diligence should confirm which foreign agreements transfer with the catalog and how payments will be redirected in each territory.