One of the biggest tug-of-wars of all time, came when Michael Jackson outbid Paul McCartney (and others), to purchase the rights to a collection of between 159 and 260 Beatles songs in a 1985 auction. But to understand the quirks of that event, and the ironic twists that followed, you have to know a little about the original rights to the songs, and copyright law as it applies to music.

Back in 1963, the Beatles sold the publishing rights to their songs, to a company called “Northern Songs”, started by their manager, Brian Epstein. In 1969, the two controlling partners, Dick James and Charles Silver, sold their 37.5% interests, to ATV, the Allied Television Corporation.

ATV then sold their music catalogues in 1985, which is where “Jocko” comes in with his purchase of the Beatles songs. (By 1995, Jackson’s song publishing business had merged with Sony.) But does he still own them? Or does he own all of them? The answer is…no

Some of the early tunes were bought outright by McCartney, and never belonged to Northern Songs. They included: Love Me Do, Please Please Me, P.S. I Love You, and Tell Me Why.

What happened to the rest? Well, Michael Jackson still owns some part of the songs, but not all. In music publishing, copyright law runs for 28 years, then expires. The law states that if a writer sells his songs to another interest during his lifetime, and he dies before the right expires, his portion of the rights revert to his heirs. If the writer is still alive, he is out of luck, as far as getting the rights back. They are renewed by whoever bought them.

This means that when the rights to Beatles songs started expiring in 1990, Jackson owned 50% of Lennon/McCartney tunes, McCartney owned 25%, and Lennon’s heirs (Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon) owned 25%. As the rights on each song expired, Lennon’s heirs got back the half (25%) of the copyright that had been purchased from Lennon. That means that Lennon’s heirs currently own 50% of all Lennon/McCartney tunes, Jackson (or his merged company) own 25% and McCartney owns 25%.

Sir Paul was reportedly not pleased. But then again, he’s still alive.

The last joint copyrights to expire in 1998, were those for Let It Be, and Long and Winding Road.