i was wondering what u guys thought of the michael jackson/paul mccartney fight. as i know it, the story was that in 1985 or around there the beatles catalog was up for grabs. michael mentioned buying it to paul, but he laughed it off and thought he was joking. paul was struggling to get money and even asked yoko for some to get it, but michael shelled out the $4.7 million or something close to that and got it. do u think paul has a right to be mad? i am a big fan of mj, so i tend to be a little more on his side...i do understand paul wanted it and it was his band, but michael did mention buying it and if he had the money and was a fan he had the right. im not sure of all the facts, i was just wondering what ur guys thoughts are.

PAUL

You SO don't want to hear my comments on michael jackson (deliberately used no capital letters there!)

Yeah, Jacko ended up buying the rights. I didn't like that but he was the one that came up with the money and bought them.
Too bad Paul didn't have the amount of money he has now

What a d*ckhead. Any self respecting fan would let Paul have it (imo anyway, especially if Paul was so desperate to ask Yoko.)

Stupid Michael Jackson, he can't even be happy to stay black.

Wacko Jacko pulled a fast one.  Business ethics I suppose.

Still, Paul could have easily afforded it himself.  He says he was waiting on Yoko and it slipped away.  Same way it happened the first time with the Beatles and Dick James.

Amazing...the Beatles (especially Paul) just seemed destined not to ever own their own songs.  That's alright.  He has enough spare change left.

They just don't know what they're missing out on, eh?

There was doodoo all over the place!

I agree with Charlie. Paul had 4.7 million laying around and dont believe him if he says differently (the guys worth a billion now and this was only 20 years ago, you do the math). I just believe it was a timing issue (Paul dropped the ball) and Paul lost.

I tought it was 47 millions, not 4.7 ?

yep, I found the correct amount here:

Quoted Text

"1985: Michael Jackson buys the publishing rights of over 100 Beatle songs to the tune of $47.5 million, outbidding the combined efforts of Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. McCartney had recommeded to Jackson buying publishing rights as a wise business investment."

now, there's a huge difference between 4.7 and 47 millions.

Paul still must be angry about it......he didn't include the Jackson duets on Wingspan....

what did mj want them for anyways?

They make you money in the longrun. You get dough whenever a Beatles track is used (and supposedly part of the album sales of recent releases like 1 and all)....in the long run, he probably made money off of the rights. A  LOT of money.

yeah, for example Jacko sold the song Revolution for a Nike commercial in the late 80s (I think).
In other words, if you want to use a Beatles song for commercial purposes you have to pay Jacko because he owns the rights

so paul doesn't get royalties for Beatle songs?  Then how did he get so rich?