Bob Dylan Sold His Songs for $400 Million. Brian Wilson's Were Sold Behind His Back for $700,000

Brian Wilson died today at the age of 82. Brian was not your ordinary run-of-the-mill songwriter/rock star. He was a one-in-a-billion musical force of nature—a melodic architect who reimagined what pop music could be. As the mastermind behind the Beach Boys, he didn't merely write songs — he sculpted them, layering harmonies and textures in ways that made the genre transcend surfboards and teenage crushes. He turned three-minute singles into symphonic expressions of joy, longing, and melancholy.

Paul McCartney once said that "no one is educated musically until they've heard Pet Sounds," calling it the album that "blew me out of the water." Bob Dylan said of Wilson, "That ear… Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian."

By the time Brian was 22, he had already written seven Top 10 hits. He would go on to pen over two dozen Top 40 singles for the Beach Boys, including "California Girls," "God Only Knows," "Don't Worry Baby," and "Good Vibrations." His genius influenced everyone from the Beatles to Radiohead to Fleet Foxes. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and honored by the Kennedy Center. His songs are part of the DNA of American culture.

And yet, despite this towering legacy, Brian Wilson spent most of his life watching others get rich off his music.

In one of the most devastating stories in modern music history, Wilson lost the rights to his entire song catalog when he was 27 years old. It did not happen in a hostile takeover or a complicated corporate deal (like the way Lennon and McCartney lost control of the Beatles' catalog), but through a quiet, secretive sale orchestrated by a member of his family…

Sea of Tunes

In the music world, if you want to make money off a song you've written, you can't just put it out in the world and say, "I own this song, I wrote it, pay me every time you use it, please!" To actually earn money from a composition, you need to form a publishing company. Publishing companies are legal entities that register works, license them, and collect royalties every time they are used—on the radio, in a movie, streamed online, played in a stadium, or covered by another artist.

So, in 1962, at just 20 years old and already becoming one of the most important pop songwriters of his generation, Brian partnered with his father, Murry Wilson, to form a publishing company. They called it Sea of Tunes. Brian owned 90%. Murry owned the other 10%.

Fun side story: In 1963, Paul McCartney and John Lennon formed a publishing company called Northern Songs to control their Beatles catalog. But in a shockingly short-sighted move, they each took only 15% ownership of their own company. The remaining 70% was owned by their music publisher (37.5%), a random investor (12.5%), and their manager (20%). Northern Songs actually went public in 1965, diluting Lennon and McCartney even further. After several other restructurings and sales, in 1985, the catalog came up for sale once again. And that's how Michael Jackson was able to swoop in and outbid McCartney to buy the entire Beatles catalog outright for $47.5 million.

Murry Wilson had been the Beach Boys' original manager. He helped secure their first record deal and guided their early career. But he was also an overbearing and abusive figure, particularly toward Brian. Although the band fired Murry as manager in 1964, he continued to handle parts of their business affairs. Most notably, he remained the representative for Sea of Tunes.

Sea of Tunes was no small operation. It owned the rights to dozens of Brian's masterpieces, including "California Girls," "Don't Worry Baby," "Surfin' U.S.A.," "God Only Knows," and many more. Every time one of those songs was played, performed, or licensed, Sea of Tunes collected the payment, 90% of which went to Brian and 10% went to Murry.

The company was not just valuable. It was Brian's creative legacy, his retirement plan, and his safety net.

Then, in 1969, it was sold without his knowledge.

Sold Behind His Back

In late 1969, Murry Wilson, acting alone, sold 100% of Sea of Tunes to a company called Irving Music for just $700,000. At the time, Brian was 27 years old. He had no idea the deal was happening and never consented to the sale. His signature was included on the paperwork, but he would later claim it was either forged or added without his understanding of what he was signing.

To put the deal in context: $700,000 in 1969 is roughly $5 million today, an amount that may sound substantial, but is a tiny fraction of what the catalog was worth even then. And it's laughably small compared to what those songs would generate over the following decades.

In the years that followed, Sea of Tunes earned well over $100 million in publishing royalties. Brian Wilson did not see a dime of those revenues.

The betrayal cut even deeper because it was carried out by his own father. Murry claimed he was acting in Brian's best interest, believing the Beach Boys' commercial peak was behind them and the catalog would be "worthless" in a few years. Worse still, the deal was handled by Abe Somer, a lawyer who represented both Murry Wilson and Irving Music—an obvious conflict of interest.

What Brian lost wasn't just money. He lost control. He lost the ability to decide how his own music could be used, licensed, or adapted. He lost the ability to say no. He lost the steady stream of royalties that should have supported him for the rest of his life.

The Lawsuit

By the 1980s, Brian Wilson's mental health had deteriorated significantly. He had become reclusive, was battling addiction, and was under the controversial care of therapist Eugene Landy. But as his condition began to stabilize in the early 1990s, Brian and his legal team turned their attention back to the catastrophic sale of Sea of Tunes.

In 1992, Brian Wilson sued Irving Music, the company that had acquired his catalog more than two decades earlier. The lawsuit alleged fraud, misrepresentation, and forgery, claiming that Brian's signature on the original sale documents had been obtained under false pretenses, or possibly forged outright. The suit also highlighted the glaring conflict of interest between Murry Wilson and the company's lawyer, Abe Somer, who had represented both sides of the transaction.

Brian wasn't asking to undo the sale. That ship had sailed. What he wanted was damages, a financial acknowledgment that what had happened to him was not just unethical, but illegal.

Brian's attorneys argued that he had lost decades of earnings and control over his own life's work. In 1994, the court agreed to a settlement. Brian Wilson was awarded $25 million in damages. That's the same as around $55 million in today's dollars.

It was a major win, but a hollow one in many ways. The ruling did not restore his ownership. The catalog remained with Irving Music (which was later absorbed into Universal Music Publishing). The songs were still out of his hands.

What Brian's Songs Were Really Worth

To grasp the full scale of what Brian Wilson lost, just look at what two of his peers earned by doing what he never got the chance to do: sell their catalogs on their own terms.

In 2020, Bob Dylan sold his publishing rights, more than 600 songs spanning six decades, to Universal Music Publishing for $400 million.

A year later, in 2021, Bruce Springsteen sold both his publishing and master recordings to Sony for a record-breaking $500 million.

One could easily argue that the Brian Wilson catalog would be at least as valuable as Bob and Bruce's catalogs. Perhaps even more valuable considering the cultural longevity and commercial appeal of Brian's compositions.

If Brian had still owned his full rights to the Sea of Tunes catalog, there's little doubt it would command a similar price, somewhere between $300 million and $500 million in today's market.

Instead, it was sold behind his back for $700,000 when he was just 27 years old.

A Legend Who Deserved More

In 2021, Brian Wilson finally had a major financial windfall, striking a deal reportedly worth $50 million with Universal Music Group. The deal included rights to his solo work, later-era Beach Boys recordings, and other assets he had retained or regained over the years. It was a meaningful victory, both financially and symbolically, but it still did not include the core 1960s catalog he had lost as a young man.

Brian Wilson spent decades watching others profit from the songs he wrote while battling the mental health challenges that fame, trauma, and heartbreak left behind. And yet, through it all, the music endured. It always will.

He didn't die with the catalog. But he died with the legacy. And no one—not a lawyer, not a publisher, not even his father—can take that away. Rest in peace, Brian! You truly were one in a billion.