Sony (SONY.US) plans to spend nearly $4 billion to acquire music copyrights of Bieber and Neil Young, etc., which could become one of the largest deals in history.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Sony Music (SONY.US) is in talks with Blackstone Inc. on a deal to acquire the music catalog, which includes works by Justin Bieber and Ne-Yo. If the deal goes through, it will be one of the largest copyright acquisitions in music history. Sources said that Sony has entered into exclusive negotiations and plans to acquire Recognition Music Group, a subsidiary of Blackstone. The company owns or manages the rights to over 45,000 songs. Sony will establish a joint venture with the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund GIC to complete the acquisition, with the deal price expected to be between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. Both Blackstone and Sony Music have declined to comment on this. Both parties are striving to complete the deal within the next week, but there is still a possibility of the negotiations collapsing at the last minute. Other entities have reportedly attempted to acquire Recognition, with at least one offering a bid believed to be higher than Sony's. However, Blackstone has refused to share data with some potential bidders and is currently in talks with Sony's music copyright department. It is worth mentioning that Sony is currently managing the copyright catalog. If the deal is successful, this will be the third multi-billion dollar music copyright deal in the past few months. The recent merger of Concord and BMG, as well as the acquisition of Kobalt by Primary Wave Music, have attracted market attention. Despite a slowdown in the global music market growth, investors are still pouring significant funds into the music copyright sector. Over the past decade, Blackstone has accumulated a large amount of music copyright assets, many of which were originally held by the UK's Hipgnosis Songs Management. Against the backdrop of streaming driving industry recovery, former head Merck Mercuriadis led Hipgnosis to acquire thousands of songs, to some extent inflating the music copyright market prices. Hipgnosis previously acquired Bieber's catalog for over $200 million and parts of Justin Timberlake's songs for over $100 million. Faced with competition from financial buyers like Blackstone, Apollo Global Management Inc, and KKR, the three major music companies - Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music - have participated in copyright acquisitions by establishing joint ventures with investors. Through such tools, record companies can acquire assets at higher prices without putting too much financial pressure on themselves. The joint venture between Sony and GIC was established earlier this year. Earlier, Billboard reported that Sony was negotiating over Recognition's copyright portfolio.