Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, ZZ Top, Neil Young, Paul Simon, Fleetwood Mac and Motley Crue. These are just some of the major stars that have sold their copyrights for extraordinary sums of money in recent months. 

Some deals involve selling all future rights and royalties, others involve partial sales with the writer/artist keeping a percentage of future income, with others selling both their publisher as well as writer income streams. Other types of deals involve major conglomerates or hedge funds buying entire catalogues of the songs of many writers-some successful, others completely unknown.

So what do these 8- and 9-figure price tags mean for most of the up-and-coming acts who perform at SXSW?

This panel will tell you why these sales are becoming commonplace, how these deals work, how purchase prices are arrived at, what income streams are most important to buyers and what this “cashing out” means for the future of new as well as mid level writers and artists.