Sir Paul McCartney has filed a lawsuit against Sony/ATV (NYSE:SNE) to regain the rights to classic Beatles songs including Love Me Do and All You Need Is Love.
In a complaint filed in New York, it details McCartney transferring the rights of songs he wrote with John Lennon to different music publishers throughout the 1960s.
The catalogue was famously bought in a $47.5 million (£38.7m) deal in 1985 including Hey Jude and Let It Be. Following the star’s death in 2009, his estate sold them back to Sony/ATV for $750 million.
The ownership of the songs is likely to be McCartney’s again by 2018. He claims he hasn’t received any confirmation yet that this is likely to happen without a legal fight, despite numerous attempts to contact the company.
“Rather than provide clear assurances to Paul McCartney that Defendants will not challenge his exercise of his termination rights, Defendants are clearly reserving their rights pending the final outcome of the Duran Duran litigation in the UK,” McCartney’s lawsuit said.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, states that under the 1976 Copyright Act, songwriters who transferred their copyright stakes to third parties before 1978 have the right to terminate those transfers and take back their interests.
Sony/ATV told the magazine Rolling Stone it was “disappointed” by the lawsuit and described it as “both unnecessary and premature”.
The publisher said: “Sony/ATV has the highest respect for Sir Paul McCartney with whom we have enjoyed a long and mutually rewarding relationship with respect to the treasured Lennon and McCartney song catalogue.
“We have collaborated closely with both Sir Paul and the late John Lennon’s Estate for decades to protect, preserve and promote the catalogue’s long-term value.”
This legal issue is similar to that of Duran Duran’s lawsuit with Sony/ATV, which it lost back in December.