Many of us are familiar with the Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson friendship that quickly deteriorated when Jackson infamously purchased the rights to the entire Lennon-McCartney catalog of music, essentially stripping the Beatle of all of his rights to the music that he created alongside Lennon during the reign of The Beatles. During their own friendship, Sir Paul explained to The King of Pop the value in music publishing; MJ clearly was listening and decided to scoop up the rights to their music in 1985 for $47.5 million from ATV Music, along with other artists music.
Needless to say, McCartney was furious at this obvious betrayal and tried to regain the rights to the music over the years, to no avail. According to the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, songwriters have the ability to recapture the publishers’ share of their songs, and in the case of titles written before 1978, after two consecutive 28-year terms, or 56 years. 2018 marks the 56-year period for McCartney to recapture the rights to the catalog.
Without going into all of the legal jargon, as of Dec. 2015, McCartney filed a termination notice for a list of songs that include several from the Abbey Road album, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “Come Together”, “Golden Slumbers”, “Carry That Weight”, and the band’s entire catalog from 1962-1964. Sounds like a ton of fun for Sir Paul to have to deal with. With friends like Michael Jackson, who needs enemies?
[via Billboard] [photo credit Echoes/Redferns]