Paul McCartney is suing Sony to finally obtain ownership of The Beatles’ catalog

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From COS:

Last March, it was reported that Paul McCartney had begun the process that would allow him to legally regain the rights to his portion of The Beatles’ catalog from Sony/ATV. Facing resistance from the music publishing company, McCartney has now filed a lawsuit in a New York court seeking a judgement affirming that he’ll regain ownership to the songs he co-wrote with John Lennon by the end of 2018.

McCartney is invoking the US Copyright Act of 1976 in his argument. The legislation allows for songwriters to reclaim copyrights 56 years after a legal transfer by filing a termination notice. With the earliest Lennon-McCartney compositions hitting that mark on October 18th, 2018, Macca has issued numerous such notices to Sony/ATV over the last decade. However, the company has refused to acknowledge his rights, hence the new lawsuit. “For years following service of the first Termination Notices, Defendants gave no indication to Paul McCartney that they contested the efficacy of Paul McCartney’s Termination Notices,” reads the complaint.

. . . .

For their [part], Sony may be hoping to employ a legal tactic currently being used against Duran Duran in a similar legal situation. In that case, an English court ruled that British interpretations of contract law supersede the US termination law. Essentially, if a British contract says an artist promises not to transfer its stake in a copyright, the artist can’t then try to issue a termination without breaching the original agreement.

. . . .

This whole mess started in the 1980s when McCartney famously advised Michael Jackson to invest in song publishing rights. Jackson then went out and bought ATV, which owned the Lennon-McCartney catalog. A decade late, Jackson agreed to a merger between ATV and Sony in which the latter gained half his stack. The publishing company acquired the other half from Jackson’s estate in early 2016.

Link to the rest at COS and thanks to Matthew for the tip.

Here’s a copy of the complaint:

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7 thoughts on “Paul McCartney is suing Sony to finally obtain ownership of The Beatles’ catalog”

  1. So the trad publishers are ALL in favor of contractual terms and following copyright law…until it’s not in their favor. At which point it becomes unfair and regrettable. Cry me a river…

  2. PG, please, what does “pro hac vice” mean in the header to the complaint? (My nasty imagination, of course, is playing all sorts of games with this Latin…)

    • A quick google search tells me that it means that the lawyer in question isn’t a member of the local bar, and will be filing some paperwork so they can handle the one case there.

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