McCartney Times

(Photo by Mary McCartney)

This week, Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit in a New York court against publisher Sony/ATV in an effort to regain his ownership stake in the Beatles publishing catalog in what could become one of the biggest legal struggles in recent music history. If successful, it would end a long and painful battle for McCartney over the ownership of his own songs, one that has involved everyone from early Beatles manager Brian Epstein to Michael Jackson, who bought the Beatles catalog in 1985 as part of a $47.5 million deal for ATV, a situation that has long been painful for McCartney.Though the fight has been ongoing for decades, it can be confusing to track the ownership of one of the most valuable catalogs in music history, and particularly how one of its main contributors was cut out of his own creations. Below is a brief timeline of the long and winding ownership tale of the Beatles catalog over the years.1963: In March 1963, the Beatles’ debut album Please Please Me was officially released, and Epstein sought a publisher for the songs written by McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The company that resulted was called Northern Songs, majority-owned by publisher Dick James with Epstein, Lennon and McCartney, with the latter two songwriters owning 20 percent of the business apiece.

Source: A Brief History of the Ownership of the Beatles Catalog | Billboard