Will Michael Jackson ever sell his Beatles Music Publishing

[spotlightkid]

Will Michael Jackson ever sell the Beatles Music Publishing he owns to either the remaining Beatles or someone else?

[PsychFan]

I thought I heard that he already did. Am I wrong?

[spotlightkid]

Jeff i have not heard that i'm sure if he did it would be in the $500 million or more dollars range-that's a fair price for something that you know for the next 200 years or so will make you more money.

[PsychFan]

I guess I was wrong, at least as of last May. Jackson says here he will "never" sell the catalog:

http://www.spin.com/new/daily/news/20010511-10.html

[Paul L.]

I seem to remember some time back reading that EMI owned a 50% interest in the Beatles publishing owned by Jackson.

And then more recently there was a lot of reporting that Jackson had put up the publishing (or the remaining 50%???) as collateral to Sony for all the Invincible costs, as a guarantee.

The EMI business is not on firm ground in my mind--I may have misread it or it may have been misreported.

Thing is, McCartney has had the opportunity to buy the Lennon-McCartney catalog on at least a couple occasions and not done it. And recently he was asked again about whether he'd buy them given the opportunity, and he pretty much said that the price is too high; that he wrote the songs for free and he doesn't want to lay out the necessary money.

[Paul L.]

Jeff,
The line in the link you gave:

"Then he bought Sony Music Publishing nine years later for $100 million."

I don't know if this is correct or not. It's pretty confusing. Sony Music Publishing and ATV (ATV used to be the owner of the Beatles publishing) have merged in some way. Seems unlikely that Jackson would own *all* of it though. After the 40-million seller Thriller, his next two albums sold pitifully. HIStory sold 1.4 million and Blood on the Dance Floor sold 230,000 copies.

Jackson laid out $30 million or so to have the molestation lawsuit dropped. He's got huge expenses. So with all this, I don't see how he could have the kind of money the article is talking about.

[Beagle]

Did I not read recently that MJ licensed out some Beatles tunes for commercials (w/Julian Lennon singing) and the remaining two were none too pleased?

[PsychFan]

Originally posted by Paul L.
"Then he bought Sony Music Publishing nine years later for $100 million."

Yeah, I did a double-take on that too. I have no idea what they're talking about there ...

[Sckott]

He must be paying VH1 a lot of money to renew his back career, because... Well.. I'm no trend-watcher, but I don't think Michael Jackson's popular enough to constitute showing a whole Michael Jackson weekend and all of his full length videos over and over.

I think it was a week ago, and then there were days I turned it on and it was nothing but Michael. I just don't get it.

And then MTV with their "Fanatic" club showing all these people obsessed with Michael Jackson. It's weird, maaan!

[Alan T]

Record Collector – January 2002

“These Songs Are Mine”

Michael Jackson is facing the prospect that his ownership of Northern Songs, the Beatles’ music publishing catalogue may come to an end, reports Keith Badman.
Jackson, who has owned the rights to the Beatles’ songs since 1984, is said to have borrowed $260 million from Sony Music against future royalties, with $200 million leveraged against the collateral of the Beatles’ song catalogue.
Sony reportedly look set to call in the loan – and with the Beatles’ catalogue currently estimated to worth around $500 million, the deal should result in a major financial gain for the corporation in the process.

[Mark H]

Amazing to think that 18-20 years ago two Mikes, Tyson and Jackson both seemed to have the world by the tail. Both earning more money than I can ever dream of,and now both surrounded in a carnival atmosphere careening from from disaster to disaster. Ah, the paths not chosen eh?

[Paul L.]

Amen.

A lot of celebrities are surrounded by sycophants and yes-men. You have to have an accurate sense of who you really are to not succumb to endless praise.

[MikeD]

There were a bunch of rumors about the catalog being sold (as noted in Alan's post) but I guess they were just that - rumors.

I haven't seen "Fanatic" but I urge you to watch "Fan Club" on VH1 if you want to see something truly frightening.

[Michael]

Whould you? He got the greatest deal period! Amazing!

[Jeff H.]

Actually the deal with ATV Music the company that holds The Beatles publishing is this. A few years ago ATV Music's publishing was administered by EMI Music. When that agreement ran out, rather than re-signing with EMI, Michael was paid nearly $100 million dollars by Sony Music's publishing company for the rights to administer(field requests to record songs for use in commercials and other media, print sheet music, etc...) that catalog. I seriously doubt he'll need to sell his copyrights anytime soon. He owns it lock, stock, and barrel.