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?

He still performs and makes albums.

Im on pauls side.

Quoted from number14, posted July 10, 2004, 4:30am at here

Im on pauls side.

Aren't we all? 

Honestly though, Michael Jackson hasn't made a good album since Thriller....Bad had its moments and everything after that was garbage.

There's more exact information here as to exactly what rights Jacko has with the music:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.htm

I don't like Jacko - I feel he doesn't respect the music, in a way. Dunno why, I just don't. I feel Paul would be the best choice to own the rights - he has a personal attachment to the songs (he wrote them) - why should anyone else have to say what the songs should be used for?

I usually don't care about tabloid scandals, but I've been following Jacko's money problems ever since I read he might very well be forced to auction off the Lennon/McCartney catalogue soon. If he does, I'll be off his back

God Jacko is a jacka*s

Ugh, that's sooo stupid, MJ doing that. I'm with Paul all the way on this one. MJ has no connection to the Beatles songs and it's complete rubbish for him to be able to use them for whatever he sees fit. Hopefully MJ will be forced to auction them off because I know Paul can darn well afford them now.

So this happened 1985? No wonder I was brought up to not like MJ, my mom being the one who introduced me to the Beatles who is a huge Paul fan lol.

I can't stand Michael Jackson, though he started out as a cool little kid with The Jackson Five. I even liked OFF THE WALL and THRILLER when they first came out. But now he's a freak and I just wish he'd disappear.

Paul


I'm so sick of Michael Jackson. I wish he'd just disappear from the spotlight.

well, that would be a problem because as soon as his face goes out of the light it decays and crawls back to hell.

I'm with Paul on this one.
MJ can go to hell for all I care.

Definitely Paul. MJ is a freak and doesn't deserve the rights of music he has no connection to. I remember seeing something on TV a few years ago about this issue and how he let Nike use "Revolution" for a commercial, and that just made me so mad. I hope that Paul won't miss his chance to buy the rights back if MJ is forced to sell them soon.

MJ is one of the few people I can at least partly understand...it's a shame he had such an abnormal upbringing and an old man who was more like Murry Wilson than anyone else.

So now he's just plain nuts.  He had talent, but his malformed ego (to match his face) tried pushing himself off as some sort of god and he declined rightly and rapidly.

Then there's the kids.

No excuse.  He may be goofier than a dog at Disneyland but he still is adult enough to KNOW what he has done.  He has lived a life of privledge for so long he is totally out of touch with reality.  He will continue to try and buy his way out of jams.

Although that reign of being able to just buy his way out of things may be over soon, since he's loosing money quickly, from what I hear

Quoted from colleen, posted July 18, 2004, 6:55pm at here

Paul


I'm so sick of Michael Jackson. I wish he'd just disappear from the spotlight.

yeah i think so too 

In my opinion, Paul shouldn't have even had to buy it, it should have been his!


Edited to Add: I do like Michael Jackson's music though. I don't judge him as a person at all or anything like that... I would have the same thoughts if it had been any other artist out of the Beatles.

Have you heard any Buddy Holly stuff used in commercials? I believe Paul owns the rights to these songs.  While I wish the beatles rights were owned by Paul (or even Ringo for that matter) if he is doing the same to Buddy Holly he can't really complain.

I don't think the Revolution Nike ad came out here in Australia but they did use "Why don't we do it in the road" for Nike, early 90's maybe late 80's here.

Just found this link, although it's almost ten years old, I have a feeling it's still relevant. BTW I don't agree with the sentiment against Paul either.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a951027.html

Definetely Paul but Michael Jackson is an awesome artist aswell.

=]

Michael does not deserve the Rights to the beatles songs, what a loser.

Quoted from sange

Have you heard any Buddy Holly stuff used in commercials? I believe Paul owns the rights to these songs.  While I wish the beatles rights were owned by Paul (or even Ringo for that matter) if he is doing the same to Buddy Holly he can't really complain.

I don't think the Revolution Nike ad came out here in Australia but they did use "Why don't we do it in the road" for Nike, early 90's maybe late 80's here.

Just found this link, although it's almost ten years old, I have a feeling it's still relevant. BTW I don't agree with the sentiment against Paul either.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a951027.html

I completely agree.

Paul should have been more aggressive.  

The rumours of MJ selling the rights of the Lennon/McCartney catalogue are getting stronger and stronger. Well, that's what I'm reading on the internet. MJ is desperately looking for money to pay his lawyers... There is really noboby else in the world than Paul who should own these rights. It's been a long time, but now they're coming back home, hopefully. It would be nice if Paul could buy the rights on Michael Jackson's songs as well. Oh well, what are they worth? We might as well buy it!

I don't really see why there's so much controversy over this.

McCartney and Lennon willing turned over their rights to their own songs, and MJ was able to buy them. Perfectly legal. MJ's not ruining the songs, and we can still get Beatles albums and Beatles material.  McCartney did the same thing. I bet Buddy Holly's kids (if he had any, I don't know) are/would be pretty mad about not owning the rights to their father's songs.

Both have bought the rights to songs from another artist, so they're both at fault.

I don't agree with Paul buying the Buddy Holly catalouge, but I can understand why he did it. he can't have control over his own songs, so he has to control someone else's.

Well Yoko owns the rights to Lennon's song since it automatically goes to her 25 years after his death, therefore Harrison's living heirs will inhereit his songs soon enough, McCartney also owns the rights to another artist whose name I forget, I remmeber that in their Beatles day they remade one of his songs, Ill have to get back to you on this part.

At least Paul kept two of the awesomest songs, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You.

Quoted from sange

Have you heard any Buddy Holly stuff used in commercials? I believe Paul owns the rights to these songs.  While I wish the beatles rights were owned by Paul (or even Ringo for that matter) if he is doing the same to Buddy Holly he can't really complain.

I guess Paul owns more rights than just the Buddy Holly catalogue. This is an extract from an interview Paul did with Playboy in 1984: "... Lee (Eastman, Linda's father) got on to the man who owned Buddy Holly's stuff and bought that for me. So I was into publishing now. The strange thing is, we never owned our own publishing; it was always getting bought and sold. Someone else owns 'Yesterday,' not me. So it is a kind of compensation, really, for that. Lee found this company called Edwin H. Morris, in New York, which owned everything, including the kitchen sink... it's just the most wonderful company ever. It has some of the best music ever written, songs that my dad would play, like 'Tenderly,' 'After You've Gone,' 'Stormy Weather.' And our luck! There's a thing in the business they call Eastman Luck, or maybe a little McCartney luck thrown in, too, but we just suddenly got very, very lucky. There was a show that needed investors and Lee said, 'Do you want to let the show run or should we can it? We have the power to can it.' I said, 'No, keep it going... it's an artistic venture, we don't want to can that.' It was 'Annie.' It was at a small theater before it got to Broadway, a little show, and we published the music. 'A Chorus Line' happened too, and we published that. 'La Cage aux Folles' has happened since, and that's been lunatic, insane. Many, many more. 'Grease' too. John Travolta was looking for something to do, and we owned the publishing rights to that."

No need to worry about Paul...