Paul McCartney to regain rights to Beatles songs currently owned by Michael Jackson

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By Sydney Bucksbaum

August 11, 2013 1:29 PM ET

Things are looking (even more) up for Paul McCartney.

Though it's well-known that the late Michael Jackson owned half of the copyrights to a large portion of Beatles songs, and that Sony/ATV Music Publishing owned the rest, what is not as well known is that McCartney has the chance to regain those rights back -- and now he knows it too, Fader reports.

According to the US Copyright Act of 1976, songwriters are able to regain control of publishing rights on pre-1978 compositions after 56 years ... which means that the former Beatle will be able to regain control over Beatles compositions from 1962 in 2018 and songs from 1970 in 2026.

McCartney only has to wait until he is 76, just a mere nine years from now, and he'll be making even more money. Not bad for someone who is already is worth about $737 million.


?http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2013/...songs-currently-owned-by-michael-jackson.html

 

[barbee0715]

How plausible is this writer? I just clicked on the actual article and one commenter said they read the bill themselves and there was no such reference. And an updated bill pushed the dates back even further than 78.

 

[Petrarose]

How misleading. I thought the article meant he was going to get them.

Who here knows about these things--I have a question: When the copyright expires, do particular songs come back on the market and Paul & others have to bid again to buy it? Then, wouldn't the estate bid again and who has the higher bid gets the songs?

 

[Ashtanga]

 

[Snow White luvs Peter Pan]

Paul never wanted to spend the money to acquire the publishing rights to begin with. How could he regain them if he has never had them? :bs: When they were sold in 20 millions, he tried to convince Yoko Ono buying half of them for him to spend less money.

 

[HIStory]

I doubt it's so. Why would the Beatles catalog be worth so much if only in a couple of years the rights go back to PM?I realize that the ATV catalog contains a lot more than just Beatles songs, so it still would worth a lot but the crown jewel are the Beatles songs. Besides, the catalog contains older songs than the Beatles' (Elvis etc.) so if they did not go back to the writers then why would the Beatles songs?

 

[virginia_woolf]

Though it's well-known that the late Michael Jackson owned half of the copyrights to a large portion of Beatles songs [...]

According to the US Copyright Act of 1976, songwriters are able to regain control of publishing rights on pre-1978 compositions after 56 years

So it's copyrights or publishing rights? As far as I know they're two different things and Michael only owns publishing rights not copyrights.

 

[AliCat]

A large factor in the Beatles' breakup was when their publisher Dick James sold his share of Northern Songs, the company they'd formed with him in 1963 (then taken public in 1967, with shares trading on the London Stock Exchange), to Britain's Associated TeleVision (ATV) in 1969. Neither the Beatles nor managers Lee Eastman and Allen Klein were able to prevent ATV from becoming majority stockholders in Northern Songs, whose assets included virtually all the group's song copyrights. Losing control of the company, John Lennon and Paul McCartney elected to sell their share of Northern Songs (and thus their own copyrights), while retaining their writer's royalties. (George Harrison and Ringo Starr retained minority holdings in the company.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_publisher_(popular_music)

Lee Eastman is the father of Linda Eastman, the first Mrs. Paul McCartney. Paul and Linda were married for thirty years and had three children together, before Linda died of cancer.

Eastman and his son successfully managed McCartney's solo career, leaving McCartney the wealthiest of the former Beatles. In 1984, McCartney cited one example of advice he received from Eastman:
“ The music publishing I own is fabulous. Beautiful. I owe it all to Linda's dad Lee Eastman and her brother John. Linda's dad is a great business brain. He said originally, 'If you are going to invest, do it in something you know. If you invest in building computers or something, you can lose a fortune. Wouldn't you rather be in music? Stay in music.' I said, 'Yeah, I'd much rather do that.' So he asked me what kind of music I liked. And the first name I said was Buddy Holly. Lee got on to the man who owned Buddy Holly's stuff and bought that for me. So I was into publishing now." ”
McCartney's music publishing investments have paid off. In 1984, he estimated that half his income came from recording, and half from his music publishing business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Eastman

Here's one comment that sums up the story - Please stop re-reporting internet hoaxes and unsubstantiated claims in articles of unknown origin. I can assure you that the Jackson Estate and all other publishers and copyright HOLDERS will retain ownership of the intended works for a duration of 75 years after the life of the author before they are released to the public domain. There are no provisions in any US or international copyright laws that allow ownership to be returned to the original creator after 56 years. If an Author signs his rights away, then they are gone forever unless the author buys them back or can prove in court that they were taken deceptively. - See more at: http://perezhilton.com/2013-08-17-p...-beatles-michael-jackson-five-years/#comments

 

[kissybissy]

I'm of the opinion the songwriter should always own the copyrights of their songs. I know it's not how the music industry works, where record companies have no respect to songwriters. Elton John once said, a song is like a baby to a songwriter and they should own the copyrights to their work. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Michael did something wrong in buying the Beatles copyrights. They were up for sale and he outbid Paul. It's all about music industry where songwriters were put into contracts to give their copyrights away, like it happened to Elton when he signed his first contract. Not sure if it was what happened to Paul and Lennon, but at those times it's how things worked.