Here's something ELSE I don't understand:

General Questions
#1

“1” has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide since its release in mid-November. In the UK it topped the charts for nine weeks, equaling the success of the Beatles’ 1969 album, Abbey Road. In the U.S. it managed eight weeks at No. 1.

Surviving members of the famous Sixties group – Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison – did not even have to enter a studio. They simply gave EMI Records permission to collate the songs, including “Love Me Do” and “Eight Days A Week.”

Didn’t Michael Jackson buy the rights to all the Beatles music? How come the surviving Beatles gave permission to someone for the “1” collection when they don’t own the rights?

#2

IIRC, Michael, by purchasing the “Rights” to the music was purchasing the ability to license say, “come together” for use in an advertisement, or for some one else to make a recording of the song. The Beatles would have, I believe, retained all rights over their original releases of their work.

For example - Disney Studios re-released ‘Lady & the Tramp’ onto video would have nothing to do with a choice to allow a remake of the story line with say, real dogs.

Did that help?

#3

Yes, thank you! That makes sense, although I would have kept all control of the music if I were a Beatle. Maybe they needed the cash, eh?

#4

I think that by some oversight, Paul (the author/co-author of most of the Beatle’s music) let the rights to his music lapse. This is when Michael Jackson aquired them.

There’re all sorts of funky rules to music copyrights. I found this one out when I was a phone system administrator: if I wanted to place an audio feed from a radio into our phone system to play as hold music, my company would’ve had to pay ASCAP for the broadcast rights, even though the radio station is already broadcasting it. But had I asked the receptionist just to place her handset next to her radio while directing calls, there wouldn’t be any problems.

#5

Hey Blondie, know what I don’t understand? Why you can’t put your question in the subject heading so that people who couldn’t care less about this topic don’t waste their time opening this thread.

Please read this and heed this. Thanks.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=56101

#6

he used to own the publishing rights not the recording rights but he sold those to Sony

#7

Here’s Cecil’s take: Does Michael Jackson control the Beatles music library?

It also explains why the rights were on the auction block in the first place.

#8

Sheesh, Stuyguy, why not just bite her head off? :rolleyes: Here’s a more tactful way of putting it:

<ahem>

"Blondie, if you make your thread titles more descriptive, you’ll be more likely to get good answers to your questions. For example, there’s a good-size Beatles fan base here at the SDMB, and if this thread had had a title like ‘Why did the Beatles give permission for the 1 collection?’, you’d probably have gotten lots more hits. You’d be amazed at just how much text you can get into a thread title, too. And even though in most other contexts, “short and snappy” is better, around here we’d really prefer “verbose and explicit”.

Even something like, ‘Answer this Beatles question’ would have been better. Threads with vague titles like ‘Explain this to me’ tend to get passed over (except for Stuyguy, evidently, but then, he’s got someone putting a gun to his head, forcing him to Open All Threads :smiley: ), 'cause we know from sad experience that they’re usually a waste of time, somebody asking to have something explained that’s perfectly obvious to anybody with the IQ of a cup of coffee."

So. :slight_smile: