Paul McCartney and Northern Songs (Sony/ATV)

[MacDaddy]

 

Interesting read from the Facebook about Paul McCartney and the Northern Songs music publishing saga. There are some salient details, which if true, conflict with the traditional McCartney narrative.

 

It's a bit of a long read, but what do our BC Beatles aficionados make of it?

 

Author

The Beach Boys And Beatles 101 : The Bands The Music The History

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The Biggest Business Mistake Paul McCartney Ever Made Was Procrastinating To Buy The Beatles’ Music Publishing Back In The Early To Mid 1980s Which He Ended Up Losing To Michael Jackson : 

August 14, 1985. A day that both longtime Beatles fans and especially Paul McCartney will never forget. 

Over 38 years ago Michael Jackson purchased The Northern Songs publishing Catalogue, along with ATV music, basically giving him ownership of over two hundred Lennon/McCartney Beatles’ songs. 

Jackson paid over 47 million dollars for the songs which became a very good investment to say the least since now the value is somewhere around a billion dollars . 

In the picture below is Michael Jackson when he worked with both Paul and George Martin on the 1983 "Pipes Of Peace" sessions where Paul told Michael about the importance of music publishing. Obviously Michael listened. 

For years Jackson was thought of as "The Bad Guy" (no pun intended) with Paul giving many people the impression that he was screwed by his former friend. Well as the years have passed it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case. No one should feel sorry for Paul and here is why.

Beginning in the year of 2018 Paul has automatically started to get the songs back for nothing. The 1976 Copyright law (which went into effect in January of 1978,) allows for the original songwriter of a song to get their songs back after 56 years from the day they were released. No matter who owns them. 

Many people also don't know that Yoko was eligible to get John's half ownership of the songs starting in 1991. That part of the copyright law allows the heirs of a songwriter who died in the first 28 years of writing music to get their rights back the second 28 years. 

That's why Yoko Ono was never that interested in buying the songs in the early 1980s and left Paul hanging. But Paul is to blame too. He definitely didn’t do his due diligence when it came to this matter, nor did he hire a knowledgeable legal team which made him look like a fool especially with Yoko Ono. 

Paul had numerous chances to buy the catalogue back between 1981-1984. Problem is he only wanted his songs back not the whole ATV songs which included many different artists songs as well. 

The owner at the time, the impresario Lew Grade, had bought the songs from John and Paul’s original music publisher Richard James. After the sudden, and shocking death of Brian Epstein James sold his majority interest to Grade without even telling John or Paul. (What a jerk)!

Once Lew Grade acquired Northern Songs he made them part of his company ATV. John and Paul, along with their manager Allen Klein, would make attempts to buy the catalogue back but would end up falling though. 

Plus the fact that John and Paul would have a falling out after John found out Paul was buying shares in Northern Songs behind his back which gave Paul more shares. In the end once they realized they had no chance of buying back their songs they would sell their remaining interest back to Lew Grade basically relinquishing any ownership of the tunes they wrote. 

After years of wasting time waiting for Paul to make a reasonable offer, ATV was sold to new owner, Robert Holmes à Court in 1982. 

Unlike Lew Grade, however, Robert did not plan to keep ownership and wanted to sell again just two years after buying ATV/Northern Songs. 

Both Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono were once again contacted to make an offer for ATV. This time neither Paul nor Yoko even bothered to make a bid saying the asking price was too much money. 

That’s when Michael Jackson was contacted who Robert knew was coming off the “Thriller” album and had the liquid assets to buy the songs for 47.5 million dollars. Almost double what Paul and Yoko were willing to pay. 

The initial mistake Paul made when Lew Grade still owned the company was asking Yoko to come in and bid with him as a partner thinking fans would respect him for giving John’s widow a chance to own the songs equally with him. Then having Yoko handle the negotiations. Also talking Paul into offering a pathetically low price for the songs. This is where Paul didn’t do his homework and Yoko did. 

Paul would realize later that since Yoko knew she would get John's rights back long before he would with the 1976 Copyright law being that a widow would get control of the songs much sooner than a songwriter still living. Michael Jackson even said Yoko actually encouraged and was happy Michael bought them. She has been quoted many times saying "I feel like a friend of the family owns them now." 

The only person who got screwed was Paul.

Also before his death Michael Jackson commented numerous times that he contacted Paul beforehand to make him aware that he planned to purchase ATV, and actually even asked Paul to come in as a partner with him yet Paul declined. 

Jackson stated Paul was okay with it. And to be honest personally as much as I love and respect Paul I tend to believe Michael Jackson in this regard. It’s been proven that Paul had no interest in buying the songs at this time. 

The Lennon/McCartney songs not part of the ATV Catalogue are “Love Me Do”, “P.S. I Love You”, and “Penny Lane”. The first two, which Paul now owns, were released before Northern Songs was formed, and “Penny Lane” was kept by Holmes à Court as a souvenir and gift to his daughter because it was her favorite Beatles’ song which she still has. 

So yes, once again there are rumors that the whole Sony/ATV catalogue now valued at over a billion dollars will probably be sold but Paul is not interested in any part of the collection with the exception of his own songs. 

And once Paul gets the rights to those songs back Sony/ATV will easily lose over a quarter it's value, if not more. But even when Paul gets his 50% Of Northern Songs back Sony/ATV will still Own the other 50% not Yoko Ono. 

What many fans don’t know, and surprisingly got very little publicity, is Yoko sold John’s interest back to Sony/ATV once she acquired the rights to John’s songs sometime in the 1990s. 

Had John been alive he never would’ve allowed that to happen. Nothing was more important to him than owning his own songs. In reality though it Yoko was more interested in the windfall of cash she received for selling them back, plus still getting a top royalty rate while Paul received much less since he became estranged from Michael Jackson when he was alive. 

Paul is known as a great businessman but on the northern songs catalogue he has botched

and made terrible decisions throughout the years. 

Also, I know it’s not a popular topic but Michael Jackson deserves praise too for the way he took care of the songs when he owned them during his lifetime. 

Yes he made a few mistakes like the whole Nike commercial/Revolution fiasco (which Yoko signed off on btw) but for the most part he was very careful about who and what things the songs were issued for. 

Especially when it came to Rap/Hip-Hop Artists constantly hounding him for permission to sample the Beatles songs. He knew Paul McCartney especially didn’t approve of that, and never allowed it to happen. 

Jackson took the financial risk that Paul didn’t seem to have the confidence to take. In some ways I get that. As Paul has stated many times, “I wrote them for nothing. It just doesn’t seem right to pay these astronomical numbers of dollars for something I created for nothing.” Fair enough I guess. 

That being said, even had Paul paid what Michael Jackson did for the songs he eventually would’ve made his money back many times over and saved himself many headaches and legal issues throughout the years. 

All that matters now though from this long and complicated story is he will now FINALLY be getting his songs back as he rightfully deserves.

#beachboysbeatles101 

[Lozz196]

The main thing I get from that is:

 

“I wrote them for nothing. It just doesn’t seem right to pay these astronomical numbers of dollars for something I created for nothing.”

Fair play, I see where he was coming from.

 

 

 

[BigRedX]

Once again, sloppy journalism, that doesn't properly explain who owns what.

 

AFAIK Northern Songs only own the Publishing of The Beatles songs. Now what percentage this actually is will depend on what was actually signed at various points in The Beatles' careers but it is unlikely to be more than 50% of the total, and is more likely to be around 33.3% (the traditional split was three equal ways for the composer, writer and publisher from the days when the music and words to a song were usually written by different people and without a publisher no-one was likely to ever hear your song in the first place). Anyone who is a PRS member could potentially look up to see what the various splits for a selection of Beatles songs is in actual fact.

 

Publishing covers actual performance royalties of the songs, so there are still the mechanical royalties which are split between the band (and their descendants) and the Record Company. Again what the percentages are will depend on what sort of deal was signed.

 

Publishing, especially when The Beatles were a band should have come with an advance (unless they were very badly advised when they signed their various deals) which is paid to the song writers for the express purposes of being able to concentrate on writing songs, so it's not as though they were "written for nothing", and I'm sure what percentage Mr McCartney actually still owns of performance royalties, but it's enough to give him a more than decent income.

 

Yes he was stupid not to have bought back the Publishing when it became available, and he must have been very badly advised if he thought that they were ever being over-valued.

[Happy Jack]

Unfortunately, it seems that Macca thought that Michael Jackson was a friend. Now that really was naive.