Pink Floyd sells catalog to Sony for $400 million
Those two bands should never be mentioned in the same sentence.
Pink Floyd is a fiercely talented foursome; KISS can barely play their instruments at all. They suck.
What I wonder when I read this is how much goes to whom. I imagine Roger Waters will try to keep it all for himself so that Gilmour, Mason, and Wright will have to sue him for their share of it. Just a guess, of course, but considering how the three of them and Waters have acted toward each other for the last 20+ years, it wouldn't surprise me.
Waters wrote most of the lyrics, post-1968 Syd's LSD-influenced mental breakdown for all the Floyd albums, from Saucerful of Secrets to The Final Cut (a Waters solo album in all but name, but compared to previous Floyd albums like Dark Side, WYWH, Animals, and the Wall, if only sold 3 million copies which is a bit of a disappointment.), about 20% of the music, created or co-created most of the iconic album thematic designs, images, as a former architectural student, he helped design most of the inflatable pigs on Animals as well as the ones used on Floyd's 1977 U.S. In the Flesh Tour. He owns a good portion of Animals, most of The Wall is his, too, except for the music itself. If one does a quick speculative financial breakdown/analysis, Waters is likely going to receive at least 50%, perhaps more and Gilmour and Mason may get more between them since Wright's been dead for nearly 16 years (unless his estate demands its fair share, which they probably will.)
Pink Floyd, by 1982 was probably a "creativity spent force" as Waters described it at the time at least in the context and form it was under Waters, the problem was Gilmour and Mason saw how much the name, songs, imagery and iconic "sound" PF created, and since they were only in their early 40's in 1983, they felt PF could last a few more decades.
Problem was, Roger Waters felt, perhaps deservedly so a little bit, that he was Pink Floyd and for ego, pride or philosophical reasons, he sued his bandmates to prevent them from using the name in London's Inns of Court. What Waters really wanted, by the mid-80's, was PF to end and to begin his solo career. Floyd had gone as far as it was humanely and reasonably possible, and perhaps even further then that.
Pink Floyd, due to a very untrustworthy financial investment company in late 70's had nade some bad investments, and when it went bankrupt, the band's investments went with it and so The Wall was recorded in France because the band were tax exiles from 1978/1980 because they knew they couldn't pay the tax leins the Inland Revenue (UK's IRS agency) were putting on them. The Wall helped them pay these debts plus much more but due to The Wall's enormous success as a double-album, arena tour de force, and a successful film, EMI and CBS Records were expecting a successful follow-up, and that forced a band that was already on extremely shaky, turbulent ground and its two main leaders, Waters and Gilmour to return to the studio to record an album they weren't ready to make.
Gilmour has said The Final Cut should've been labeled "The Final Straw" because that's where his and Waters' professional/personal relationship finally collapsed and they became the most venomous/bitter enemies and that acrimony, bitterness hasn't ever really gone away. Album's producer, James Guthrie, said once that Waters and Gilmour actually got into a nasty physical fight at a recording studio early in the sessions. Nick Mason has often felt that the album shouldnt been recorded as a Floyd album, but as a Waters solo album. He also feels, as does Waters and Gilmour to some extent, that if The Final Cut hadn't been recorded as a band album, he and Gilmour mightve stayed on relatively-decent speaking terms instead of refusing to talk to each other.