Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

OFF OF THE WEB TODAY:

Michael Jackson loses his grip on a treasure

Michael Jackson is close to selling half of his stake in a music catalog full of Beatles hits to stay out of bankruptcy. Jackson owns 50 percent of the Sony-ATV catalog, which has been valued at $1 billion. The troubled King of Pop used his stake as collateral on $270 million in loans, and needs sell a chunk to Sony as part of a deal to refinance the debt. In addition to more than 200 Beatles tunes, the archive includes "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, and "E-Pro" by Beck. (The New York Times, free registration required)

I believe SONY has the right of first refusal. Besides after a certain number of years many of the rights revert back to Paul. Some already have to Yoko. Paul has said that he is not interested in buying them back. I believe his words were to the effect of I'm happy with what I've got.

What an arcane business publishing is. I wonder if Paul's lost the rights to Buddy Holly's tunes yet. They're certainly older than the Fabs publishing. And what are the rights anyway? Does that just mean permission must be granted (I though the Beatles have that and have always had that) or does it mean who gets paid? Something tells me, no matter what Paul has, he's always ready for more, just doesn't strike me as content business wise. The others, yet, but not Paul.

Can I bid for ownership of the Beatle tunes? I'll put by Beatle bootleg LP collection up as a downpayment.

Paul could possibly buy it... but fuggedabout Yoko. She doen't have that kind of serious money and could never sell enough Lennon bobbleheads to make up the difference.

Would be interesting to find out. Apparently in the 80s Yoko had enough dough to interest Macca in meeting with her and talking about it. And Yoko has a lot of NYC real estate. And that has done pretty well in the past 20 years. So, unless she splurged somewhere, she's got more money now than she had then.

Could be, who knows.... she's certainly demonstrated that she'd do just about anything for a buck including trading on her dead husbands image like it was yesterdays news (sorry, bad metaphor, but you get the drift)

Heh-heh, does that include doing a deal for a John Lennon limited edition?

Macca okay'd if not was personally involved in the promotion of the Wingspan ads that from what I could tell not only rewrote that band's history but traded heavily on his dead wife's image.

That is, Wings suddenly (in the span of one TV commercial) went from a band that he had for years claimed was a real band that had minimal input from Linda, and considerable input from it's various members, to a band that for all intents and purposes was the precious and oh so cute Paul and Linda group. (Okay, it probably was the whole time. But it was still trading on his dead wife's image and showed how laughable all his denials in the 70s and 80s had been.)

I laughed out loud when I saw it. There was hardly a clip of Denny or anyone else to be seen. But tons of Linda. And she was only dead a few years when it aired. Maybe Yoko's just watching Paul and doing as he does.

Glenn, I don't think the entiree catalog reverts to the song writer. I'm not sure how it all works.

As for the Limited edition...I assume you mean the RIC. I would say that it would include that guitar and the Epiphone. I don't think John would have done that.

As for Wingspan, I don't recall Paul ever saying Linda had limited input. I don't think anyone ever thought it was anything other than Paul and Linda's band. I've never thought, and no one has tried to show me that it was anything different. I know Paul has said that he tried to make it more of a band, but we all know that Paul and Linda called the shots. If George and Ringo were with Paul in 1973, Band on the Run would have been recorded at EMI Abbey Road. But since it was Henry and Denny (Seiwell) then it was goodbye to them and hello to Lagos!

Far as the Limited Editions go, speaking for myself, Brian, I wouldn't try to speak for the dead. In the Playboy interview, John seemed to be pretty gung ho about Yoko's business decisions. I think the Limited Editions were tastefully done. Let's see if at some point Olivia feels the same way.

I remember back in the mid 70s and well into the 80s, for that matter, in interviews many times, Macca constantly downplayed Linda's role in his music because he was constantly and closely questioned about it by music writers (much as John was with Yoko.) Save the names, the question was basically the same; "why is this person who has no musical background playing in a band and singing on records with Paul McCartney?" and he would usually answer something like "well, when we got married I wanted to tour and wanted her to come along. She plays a little bit and sings a little bit but really it's mainly just so she can come along and be with me." I'm sure a lot of people could have cared less (save the guys who released the tape from one of the last tours of Linda's voice isolated during Hey Jude, which was noticed by many.) I could dig up the interviews in numerous cases, I'm certain. But when it came to marketing the collection, it was all Linda and hardly anyone else. Regardless of what she did or didn't do, it traded heavily on her role in the group, which was previously described as quite limited, and she was not long dead.

I just think that they all believe they were screwed when it came to endorsements. Paul and George seemed to be the most outspoken in regards to endorsements. I cannot speak for the dead either, but I my feeling is John wouldn't have done it. If he were still alive I think he and Yoko would have focused on the creative side of things and not the legacy .

Yes, well, that's the thing, unfortunately, death changes everything. I agree that they though they were screwed often, mainly though on royalties I thought that was. There is a quote though, from George, to the contrary. I think it's from the 80s, maybe a Guitar Player magazine interview, where he says had they been more savvy they'd have had shares in Vox and Gretsch.

>>had they been more savvy they'd have had shares in Vox and Gretsch.

HA... no kidding! And (although a private company) lets not forget what they did for Rickenbacker.

I read some quote by Paul saying that he would never attempt to buy back the publishing....he said something to the effect that some rights revert back to him in a couple of years anyway.

As for Buddy Holly's songs, he owns those (and thousands more) under his MPL Communications company and Jackson can't touch those.