The Guardian view on music streaming: the tide is high | Editorial

Classic tracks by groups such as Blondie are fuelling an online music boom. But emerging artists need a bigger slice of the profits

In Nick Hornby’s late 1990s novel About a Boy, one of the characters lives comfortably from the royalties of a Christmas hit written by his late dad. These days, the easygoing Will Freeman might be tempted to auction off the rights and cash in while he can. The music-streaming revolution has turned old songs into one of the world’s most precious commodities. Back catalogues are being mined on an industrial scale.

When Bob Dylan sold all his work to Universal Music for an estimated $300m (£225m) earlier this month, the company described it as “the most significant music publishing agreement this century”.