Beatles Catalog Rights Return to McCartney?

[Bighouse]

"A report in the Mirror is claiming that Michael Jackson has left the publishing rights to the Beatles’ body of work–which Jackson won at auction in 1985–to Paul McCartney, with an insider telling the paper, “Michael told his lawyers he was sad he no longer talks to Sir Paul and said he wanted to make things right.” Jackson’s purchase of the publishing rights resulted in a schism developing between the two artists, who had collaborated on “Say Say Say” (above) and “The Girl Is Mine” in the years prior to the auction." (copyclipped)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/200 ... -21013162/

[paologregorio]

Interesting. I thought I'd read somewhwere that he'd already bought those back.

[beatlefreak]

I'm not sure that MJ still has the rights to the Beatles catalog. They may have been sold to Sony/ATV several years ago.

[wj350]

I'm thinking it's unlikely, if ever, to happen.

Reports are saying he's more than $400M in debt--and this family knows a thing or two about fighting in the courts for money.

Who knows?

[dudley07726]

I don't believe this story at all. In fact, what prevented Macca from originally buying them in the 80's was that he wanted to buy it in joint with Yoko since he felt it was only fair due to John. She felt she could get them cheaper and in between, Jacko scooped it up. She also knew that after a certain amount of years a certain portion would be reverting back to Lennon's heirs without spending any funds. There was an article about this in, if I remember correctly, Musician Magazine from late 80's- (I have it in my archives)
And no, Maccadidn't buy them back. Paul owns Love Me Do & PS I Love You only because they were owned by another publishing company that Paul bought.

Jacko would give it to Bubbles before he would give it to Paul.

[Bighouse]

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp

[revolver323]

I imagine that if MJ hand any intention of being nice and giving the rights to PM, he'd have done so long before this. But if he'd have been nice all along, maybe he would have not outbid PM and Yoko in the first place. I don't feel sorry for PM not earning megamillions more, but I do think MJ's little game was despicable.

[atomic_punk]

Isn't there a quote from McCartney somewhere a few year back where he says he won't pay billions of dollars for something he scribbled on a piece of paper in 10 minutes?

[rickboy88]

I've read that Jackson used his share of the rights as collateral with Sony. According the article, they could have pulled his half from him some time ago, but they were worried about the fan backlash. Sony is likely going to end up with the whole thing.

This link (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... paK43omDjk) states that Jackson gave Sony an option to buy half of his 50% stake in Sony/ATV to refinance $300 million of loans back in 2006, which means he was down to 25% if Sony exercised the option - if I'm reading it all right.

I've also heard that he was approximately $500 million in debt, but all that info is only as good as the source.

I wish I could find the link about Sony/ATV. I read it a few days ago.