Britney Spears, one of the most influential pop stars of the last three decades, has sold the rights to her entire music catalog.
The move, finalized at the end of 2025, transfers ownership of her most famous songs to a major music publishing company, marking a major business shift for the 44-year-old singer.
According to legal documents obtained by TMZ and confirmed by numerous media outlets, Spears signed an agreement on December 30, 2025, selling her ownership share in her music catalog to Primary Wave, an independent music publishing and rights management company.
Primary Wave has a reputation for acquiring and managing the catalogs of legendary artists. Its holdings include rights related to artists such as Prince, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, and Stevie Nicks.
While the exact financial terms of the deal have not been officially disclosed, multiple industry sources estimate the sale to be in the low nine figures, around $200 million USD, positioning it among the most significant catalog acquisitions in recent pop music history.
The music catalog Spears sold includes ownership shares of many of her most iconic songs — tracks that helped define pop music at the turn of the millennium and continue to be streamed, sampled, and licensed across global media.
Some of the songs now controlled by Primary Wave include: Baby One More Time, Oops!… I Did It Again, Toxic, Gimme More, Circus, Womanizer, Lucky, Stronger”
These hits span her career, from her breakthrough in 1999 through the heights of her mainstream success. Spears has songwriting credits on many tracks, although some of her biggest hits were co-written with other collaborators.
In recent years, there’s been a clear trend of major artists selling their music rights — especially classic catalogs with long-term earning potential — to publishing companies and investment firms.
Legends such as Bruce Springsteen, Shakira, Bob Dylan, and Justin Bieber have sold parts or all of their catalogs, often for significant sums, as a way to monetize decades of creative work in a single transaction.
This trend has become especially prominent in the streaming era, when older songs can continue earning substantial income long after their original release.
Spears first exploded onto the global music scene in 1999 with “…Baby One More Time”, becoming a defining voice of teen pop and later mainstream pop culture. Over the past 25+ years, she has released nine studio albums and sold well over 150 million records worldwide.
Her personal life, including a highly publicized conservatorship that lasted nearly 14 years and ended in 2021, has been part of the global conversation about artist autonomy and mental health.
In her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, Spears recounted the emotional toll of that period, which limited her control over many aspects of her life and career.
Since the end of the conservatorship, Spears has largely stepped back from releasing new music. Her last studio album was 2016’s Glory, though she has continued to make occasional musical contributions, including collaborations like a 2022 duet with Elton John.