text: Sony/ATV is the defendant and could be primed to make a defense similar to the one being used against Duran Duran. 
   
   Paul McCartney has filed suit in New York against Sony/ATV and is looking to get a declaratory judgment that states he will soon regain his copyright ownership share to a treasured catalog of songs created as a member of The Beatles. 
   
   In what could become one of the most important legal battles in the music industry this decade, the iconic songwriter is looking to leverage the termination provisions of the Copyright Act. 
   
   In 1976, Congress increased the period that works are under copyright protection, and, in recognition of authors who had signed over their rights to publishers and studios without much bargaining power, allowed such authors 35 years hence to reclaim rights in the latter stages of a copyright term. Artists such as Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Prince have used the mere threat of termination to negotiate new deals and better compensation arrangements. 
   
   According to McCartney's complaint, he transferred rights to songs co-authored by him and John Lennon between 1962 and 1971 to various music publishers. 
   
   It's well known that in the 1980s, after getting advice from McCartney himself that the big money in music was tied to rights in song compositions, Michael Jackson bought songs including "Yesterday," "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be." Jackson then entered a joint venture with Sony/ATV, and last year, his estate sold the late pop singer's remaining interest to Sony. 
   
   The lawsuit notes that McCartney has been serving and recording termination notices for nearly a decade. Represented by attorneys at Morrison & Foerster, he now expects to recover copyright interests as soon as Oct. 5, 2018. "For years following service of the first Termination Notices, Defendants gave no indication to Paul McCartney that they contested the efficacy of Paul McCartney’s Termination Notices," states the complaint. "Defendants’ affiliates did, however, oppose at least one other artist’s terminations of transfers under the terms of the 1976 Copyright Act." 
   
   That refers to Duran Duran's own attempt to regain rights under the termination protocol outlined by U.S. copyright law. In December, Sony scored a shocking win when an English court ruled that American termination law took a backseat to an interpretation of contracts under English law. The justices determined that Duran Duran's contractual promise to not transfer its interest in copyrights foreclosed its ability to terminate a grant of rights as a transfer of reversionary interest from the song publisher to themselves. 
   
   Apparently, that has given Sony hopes of pulling off the same maneuver with respect to Beatles songs. 
   
   Sony, states McCartney's complaint, has refused to provide confirmation of termination and has "thus attempted to reserve Defendants’ right to assert that once Paul McCartney’s terminations go into effect, Paul McCartney will have breached his contractual obligations to Defendants. 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 U.K." 
   
   By filing this suit now, McCartney clearly is looking to have an American court rather than a U.K. one rule in the dispute. By doing so, the complaint hints that he will soon be bringing arguments that in the U.S., the statutory termination right supersedes any contractual right. Whether or not an English court recognizes such a decision will be something for down the road. 
   
   In the meantime, conversations between the parties, attached as an exhibit to the lawsuit, reveal that Sony has made arrangements with respect to John Lennon’s share and will retain its worldwide rights in his share of the compositions for the life of the copyright. Sony chairman Martin Bandier has been conversing directly on this issue, and the defendant has retained attorney Donald Zakarin for its legal defense. When the topic of Duran Duran was first addressed in December, it was interpreted as a "threat." Zakarin later wrote the other side that it had no wish to engage in litigation with McCartney and hoped to reach an agreement with him that would be mutually beneficial. But money can't buy love. The two sides haven't been able to come to a deal, and now the dispute has been put before a judge. 
   
   In response to the lawsuit, Sony issued this statement: "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 & McCartney song catalog. We have collaborated closely with both Sir Paul and the late John Lennon’s Estate for decades to protect, preserve and promote the catalog’s long-term value. We are disappointed that they have filed this lawsuit which we believe is both unnecessary and premature.” 
   
   Here's the full complaint: ||||| UPDATE: Paul McCartney and Sony/ATV have reached a settlement over the ownership of songs he wrote with the Beatles, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Details of the deal have not been disclosed. 
   
   "The parties have resolved this matter by entering into a confidential settlement agreement and jointly request that the Court enter the enclosed proposed order dismissing the above-referenced action without prejudice," McCartney's attorney Michael Jacobs wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Thursday. The order states that the New York federal court will "enforce the terms of the parties’ Settlement Agreement, should a dispute arise." 
   
   A rep for Sony/ATV confirmed to Rolling Stone that the parties have resolved this matter. A rep for Paul McCartney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
   
   *** 
   
   Paul McCartney has filed a federal lawsuit against music publisher Sony/ATV, claiming ownership to songs he wrote with the Beatles. The singer-songwriter hopes to regain his copyrights to songs such as "Yesterday," "Hey Jude" and "The Long and Winding Road" in October 2018. A rep for McCartney said that the paperwork, filed in a U.S. District Court in New York, is meant "to confirm his ownership" of the songs "which are granted to him by US copyright law." The lawsuit claims McCartney has been making several such legal filings since 2008. 
   
   The former Beatle is seeking a "declaratory judgment," according to The Hollywood Reporter, to ensure the transfer will not be prolonged. He's also seeking a ruling that the publishing agreements are unlawful and unenforceable against McCartney, attorneys' fees and any other fees the court feels is just. 
   
   
   
   McCartney's legal team is citing the 1976 Copyright Act that says that the rights to works made before 1978 must be returned to their creators 56 years after the date of the original copyright; 2018 will be 56 years since Lennon and McCartney first starting writing songs together in 1962. 
   
   "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 catalog," a rep for the publishing company tells Rolling Stone. "We have collaborated closely with both Sir Paul and the late John Lennon's Estate for decades to protect, preserve and promote the catalog's long-term value. We are disappointed that they have filed this lawsuit which we believe is both unnecessary and premature." 
   
   McCartney is hoping that a U.S. court will rule in his favor ahead of a U.K. court; Duran Duran had filed a similar suit last year with a Sony/ATV subsidiary and an English court ruled that American law came second to those of Great Britain. By filing the suit in the U.S., McCartney's legal team hopes that U.S. Copyright law and its statutory termination rules – the point at which the copyright reverts back to the writer – would take precedence over any contracts in the U.K. 
   
   McCartney and John Lennon had assigned the rights to some of the songs, written between 1962 and 1971, to various publishers; by the Eighties, a number of the songs belonged to ATV. In late 1984, Australian billionaire Robert Holmes à Court put the songs up for sale. McCartney had spoken to his then-friend, Michael Jackson, about the lucrative business of owning songs and Jackson subsequently outbid his friend, taking ownership of the Beatles' catalogue for the price of $47.5 million. 
   
   Jackson later worked with Sony to form Sony/ATV. The book Michael Jackson, Inc. reports that as of 2014, Sony/ATV was worth $2 billion. Jackson's heirs owned half of the business until the estate sold its share to Sony last year. 
   
   "Some time ago, the media came up with the idea that Michael Jackson was going to leave his share in the Beatles songs to me in his will, which was completely made up and something I didn't believe for a second," McCartney said in 2009, upon news of Jackson's death and the revelation that Jackson had not given him his songs back. "Now the report is that I am devastated to find that he didn't leave the songs to me. This is completely untrue. I had not thought for one minute that the original report was true and therefore, the report that I'm devastated is also totally false, so don't believe everything you read folks." 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   ||||| Paul McCartney filed a lawsuit against Sony/ATV Music Publishing, seeking a court’s declaration that he can reclaim outright many of his The Beatles compositions from the 1960s and 70s. 
   
   In his lawsuit, filed in a New York federal court, McCartney cites The Beatles songs that he and John Lennon jointly created from 1962 to 1971, noting that during that time they typically assigned their copyright interests to publishers in exchange for royalties. 
   
   A provision of the Copyright Act allows authors and co-authors to reclaim the copyrights in their works after a set period of time, provided that they serve termination notices on the current rights holder. One aspect of the law gives authors who transferred their interests in their works before Jan. 1, 1978, the ability to reclaim the rights. 
   
   The works at issue include some of The Beatles’ best known songs, including “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be,” “Love Me Do,” “P.S. I Love You,” “Thank You Girl,” “Bad to Me,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “All You Need Is Love.” 
   
   McCartney began to serve termination notices in October 2008. The terminations begin to be effective in 2018. 
   
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   “For years following the service of the first termination notices, defendants gave no indication to Paul McCartney that they contested the efficacy of Paul McCartney’s termination notices,” the lawsuit states. But McCartney’s lawsuit notes that Sony/ATV did challenge termination notices made by Duran Duran in a lawsuit filed in the United Kingdom. The High Court concluded that Duran Duran made agreements that precluded them from exercising their termination rights, but they based their decision on English law and “did not explicitly refer to U.S. termination rights,” according to McCartney’s lawsuit. 
   
   McCartney notes in the lawsuit that Sony/ATV executives “indicated to Paul McCartney’s representatives that Sony/ATV would try to use” the Duran Duran decision against him. 
   
   Although Martin Bandier, Sony/ATV chairman and CEO, acknowledged that McCartney’s termination notices were valid, McCartney’s attorneys are seeking assurances that the publisher still will not take legal action against him. Otherwise, McCartney’s lawsuit stated, litigation would cloud his title to The Beatles’ works. 
   
   “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 U.K.,” McCartney’s lawsuit claims. “If that goes as defendants hope, defendants evidently intend to challenge Paul McCartney’s exercise of his termination rights on similar contractual grounds.” 
   
   A spokeswoman for Sony/ATV said, in a statement, “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 & McCartney song catalog. We have collaborated closely with both Sir Paul and the late John Lennon’s Estate for decades to protect, preserve, and promote the catalog’s long-term value. We are disappointed that they have filed this lawsuit which we believe is both unnecessary and premature.” ||||| Paul McCartney is gunning to get back the copyrights to Beatles songs he wrote or co-wrote that currently are owned by the Sony/ATV publishing company. 
   
   According to the rock legend's rep, McCartney filed a lawsuit in New York on Wednesday "to confirm his ownership in his U.S. reversionary copyrights, which are granted to him by U.S. copyright law, in the songs he wrote with John Lennon and recorded with The Beatles." 
   
   Under copyright law, creators who sold copyrights before 1976 have a right to reclaim them at a certain point. 
   
   The lawsuit claims that McCartney has been serving notices of his intention to reclaim them to the current owners of the copyrights since 2008, and is expecting to have these copyrights returned to him beginning in October 5, 2018. 
   
   The suit -- which asks the court to affirm that these notices are valid and proper under the law -- seems to be an attempt to protect the former Beatle from a legal strategy the publishing company used in U.K. courts in December to hold off an attempt by Duran Duran to reclaim its publishing. 
   
   In response to the lawsuit, Sony/ATV has issued a statement maintaining that it "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 & McCartney song catalog," while adding, "We are disappointed that they have filed this lawsuit which we believe is both unnecessary and premature." 
   
   Last year, Sony/ATV, which was established as a joint venture between Sony and Michael Jackson in 1995, bought late the King of Pop's share of the company for $750 million. ||||| Paul McCartney I Want to Get Back My Beatles Hits from Sony 
   
   Paul McCartney Sues Sony to Get Back Beatles Songs 
   
   EXCLUSIVE 
   
   Paul McCartney is putting Sony Music on notice ... he's going to reclaim his copyright on a bunch of The Beatles hits in the very near future whether the label likes it or not. 
   
   Sony currently holds the copyright on the songs, but in legal docs Sir Paul says they will become his property again in 2018. The tracks -- including "Love Me Do," "All You Need Is Love" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" -- are part of the Sony ATV catalog. 
   
   It's the same group of songs Michael Jackson once controlled. His estate sold it to Sony outright last year ... for $750 million. 
   
   According to docs, McCartney's tried numerous times to get confirmation Sony will transfer the rights without a fight, but says he kept getting the run around. 
   
   Macca says he's being proactive by filing this lawsuit to get a little help from his friends -- in the court -- to declare the songs will be his again by next year.
target: – Sony currently holds the copyright to part of the Beatles catalog, including such hits as "Love Me Do" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand"—but Paul McCartney is suing to get the songs back. Per TMZ, the songs in question are the ones Michael Jackson once held the rights to; his estate sold the rights to Sony last year for $750 million. McCartney has been trying to get Sony to transfer the rights to him by 2018; as ABC News explains, he's been notifying Sony and the prior rights holders of his intention to reclaim the rights since 2008. A McCartney rep explains, per Rolling Stone, that the suit is attempting "to confirm his ownership" of the songs "which are granted to him by US copyright law." As Rolling Stone and Variety explain, the US Copyright Act says that for works in which creators transferred their interests before 1978, rights can be reclaimed by the creators 56 years after the original copyright date as long as termination notices are served to the current rights holder; next year will mark 56 years since McCartney started writing songs with John Lennon, and his suit notes that at the time the songs in question were created, he and Lennon typically transferred their rights to publishers in exchange for royalties. The Hollywood Reporter, which says the case "could become one of the most important legal battles in the music industry this decade," has more detail on the ins and outs of the law.