Michael Jackson Estate In Talks To Sell The Beatles' Publishing Rights

The estate of the late Michael Jackson, are reportedly set to meet with representatives from Sony who plan to buy out the rights for the King Of Pop's Sony ATV music catalog which contains the publishing rights to a number of some of the world's biggest music acts, including The Beatles.

As Rolling Stone reports, Jackson bought the catalog back in 1985 as a financial lifeline. It currently holds the rights to 750,000 songs, including tracks from the iconic UK group, as well as Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones and many more — it is worth an estimated two billion dollars. 

In 1995, Jackson merged his ATV company with Sony and in 2007, due to the troubled star facing crippling debt, he agreed to give Sony the option to buy out his half at a later date and it appears the music company are looking to exercise that right in the near future. 

The Beatles famously lost control of much of their publishing rights in the '60s due to complicated business deals and while member Paul McCartney wrote two very successful songs with Jackson in the '80s (Say Say Say and The Girl Is Mine) their relationship reportedly soured when McCartney unsuccessfully bid against Jackson for the band's publishing rights which were bought for $47.5 million.