update: her brother sells the beatles songs back.. and bono talks to macca
(the times)
Jackson bought the Beatles songbook from under the nose of Sir Paul McCartney in 1985 — only two years after the men had released a duet called Say Say Say.
The deal ended their friendship, with Sir Paul complaining that he had to pay to perform his own music in America.
Sir Paul recently claimed that he had no interest in buying the songs back.
He said: “Bono [the U2 lead singer] rang me and said, ‘Did you hear? He’s selling the songs. You should buy them!’. Everyone else thinks I should, too. But the thing is, I do get some cash from the publishing already. And in a few years more of the rights will be automatically reverting to me.
“The only annoying thing is, when I tour America, I have to pay to play some of my own songs. But I don’t think about that. Because if I did, it would be just too annoying.”
Jackson paid only $47.5 million for the 251 Beatles songs, plus the rights to another 4,000 tunes, which were part of a company called ATV Music.