Months after his death, Michael Jackson set a music-industry record, thanks to a deal between his estate and Sony Corp. valued at as much as $250 million, according to people familiar with the terms.
The deal—touted by both Sony and Mr. Jackson's estate as the most lucrative recording contract ever— guarantees the estate at least $200 million. With 10 albums over seven years, the deal will involve a mix of previously unreleased songs and new packages of familiar ones.
The dollar amount is especially striking against the backdrop of the music industry as a whole, in which U.S. album sales have plunged 52% in a decade. Superstar deals worth tens of millions of dollars per album were rare even at the peak of the CD-sales boom in the late 1990s. Yet it also underscores that the biggest acts are becoming even more essential to record labels, as individual fans purchase fewer albums each year.
Since Mr. Jackson's death on June 25, Sony has sold an estimated 31 million of his albums globally. By the first anniversary of his death, his estate expects to have earned $250 million from sales of music, merchandise and tickets to the posthumous concert film "This Is It."
The advances being paid by Sony are to be offset by sales of albums as well as revenue generated by licensing Mr. Jackson's music for uses like videogames, movies and theatrical performances. But unlike the megadeals struck in recent years by concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc. with pop stars Jay-Z and Madonna, the Jackson deal doesn't give Sony income from other parts of the late singer's business, such as merchandise sales or fees for licensing his name and likeness.
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