Downtown Music Publishing scores early Beatles tracks
It’s no secret that, due to a terrible deal the pair unwittingly signed, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were duped out of the songwriting copyright to the Beatles catalogue.
McCartney has spent years attempting to purchase the publishing for more than 250 Beatles tracks, first from Australian business tycoon Robert Holmes à Court, who owned the Northern Songs catalogue, then from Michael Jackson, who purchased the catalogue from Holmes à Court behind McCartney’s back – a move that severely angered McCartney, as he had first introduced Jackson to the concept of purchasing songwriting catalogues. When Jackson died in 2009, the dispute was (mostly) water under the bridge, however McCartney expressed disappointment that Jackson hadn’t left the publishing to him in his will, like he had suggested he would, especially considering how outspoken McCartney was about wanting the songs back.
Finally, it appears that US copyright law is on the side of The Beatles. In August, it was reported that McCartney had won back the rights to the catalogue under the US Copyright Act, which deems that songs written prior to 1978 (read: the entire Beatles catalogue) will become the property of the songwriter(s) 56 years after first being published. This means that McCartney’s earliest compositions, published in 1962, will revert back to him in 2018. By 2021, he will own the rights (with the estate of co-writer Lennon) to perhaps his most celebrated song, Yesterday, with the entire Lennon-McCartney catalogue being (half) his by 2026.
In the case of Lennon, however, the law differs as he passed in 1980, which allows his estate to claim various portions of the catalogue earlier, through copyright termination and reversions procedure. This led to US music publisher Downtown today being announced as the US administrator for the two 1962 Beatles singles, which feature tracks Please Please Me, Ask Me Why, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. The deal also includes the publishing for Free As A Bird, a 1995 posthumous Beatles single which was built upon a 1977 demo recorded by Lennon.
In January, Downtown Music Publishing also scored the US administration rights for the solo works of John Lennon (Lenono Music) and Yoko Ono (Ono Music). The copyright for Lennon’s 50% songwriting credit on those four early Beatles tracks reverted to the Lennon estate under U.S. copyright law, although until recently, an administration deal with Universal Music Publishing Group was still in place. Downtown will administer copyright for Lennon’s stake in these tracks.
In January, Round Hill Music bought the US copyrights to six other early Beatles tracks: She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, From Me to You, There’s a Place, I Wanna Be Your Man and Misery, outbidding several major companies for the rights to the songs, the US publishing rights for which were purchased in 1963 by New York song promotor George Pincus – when copyright holder Dick James had trouble placing them (guitar groups were on the way out, after all).
While the monetary value of the various portions of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting catalogue remains unknown, with estimations varying wildly, slowly but surely the catalogue is getting back to where it once belonged. And, come 2024, Paul McCartney will at least be able to see one of his biggest longterm gripes put to bed: “The annoying thing is I have to pay to play some of my own songs,” he stated years ago. “Each time I want to sing Hey Jude I have to pay.”