Who owns the portion of the rights to the Beatles songs that Michael Jackson owned prior to his death?

Good question…Can’t wait to see who actually knows something and is forced to post below me…

Several sources say that he is leaving it to Paul McCartney. I wonder if that will happen considering the level of his debts.

Sony and Michael Jackson jointly owned that 50%. He was in so much debt and he’d borrowed against that catalogue so many times, it’s going to take years to sort out this mess. Perhaps Paul can buy his shares back, but damn, that’s going to be a huge price to pay.

He was sooooo in debt. It’s hard telling how many years it’ll take to get that mess straightened out.

If he had a will, then whomever it says in his will, if not, probably his kids, though it does depend on who has the best lawyer in teh long run.

@dalepetrie He said he had left it to McCartney in his will. No one has seen the will yet, of course.

Let’s hope there is one or it’s gonna get UUUUUUGGGGGGLLLLYYYY, really quick.

Those poor kids. Will they just become pawns for someone to exploit?

@Marina – yes, unfortunately they will.

@dalepetrie dammit, i wanted to say that!

Hey. I’m waiting for a book. I think “Blanket” will spill.

Right now, technically, MJ’s estate still owns them. We’ll see who ends up with them in the end. They still haven’t even officially determined the cause of death.

@tinyfaery you are totally right Blanket is going to be so pissed off that he was named after bedclothes that he is going to write an tell-all book as soon as he turns 18. Yes, I do realize Blanket is a nickname, but what happened to cool nicknames like Tiger and Buster?

Blanket is a bit of a loser nickname, but who would object if the other choice was Prince Michael II.

I think Blanket will go the same route that David Bowie’s son (christened Zowie Bowie) and I did: change his name legally when he can.

Zowie is now Duncan Jones.

Probably like Elvis he’ll make more money in death than in life. I read that Elvis was only worth about $4 million when he died.

His CDs and DVDs are already basically sold out in almost every store in the world right now. Yeah, I’d say that $75 million a year he usually makes in royalties will triple this year…his estate will be out from the $400M debt within 5 years, even if he does give McCartney the Beatles songs.

What I have to wonder is, who’s going to be the first to say they want to adopt the kids…is it gonna be his mother or one of his siblings, or Debbie Rowe, or the mysterious mother of Blanket, or Lisa Marie, or the real Billie Jean, someone who comes out of the woodwork and says they’re the real mother/father, or who? As cynical as it is to say, those kids are a potential goldmine to whomever gets them. What I want to see however is someone assert that Michael is not their biological father, because c’mon, even if you buy that MJ’s skin was white from Vitiligo, explain why his kids are white?

Yeah, I said it.

Genes are funny things. You never know how or when, if any, European genes that many African-Americans have will express themselves. I don’t doubt that the Jackson family has a bit of Euro in them. But yes, such straight hair and light skin for all three kids? I could see that for one child, but not all three.

@aprilsimnel you are quite right, Michael borrowed against so much that I doubt anyone will actually own it outright at this point.

Basically, he borrowed $100M against them from Sony, to whom he sold the other 1/2 of the rights for $95M a few years back. Sony put conditions for repayment into place, just like any lender would, and specified what constituted default. Jackson did default on the repayment, and Sony has (or had, not sure how probate affects this) every right to repossess it. The problem is, with as poorly as record companies are doing these days, they can’t afford a customer backlash, which is exactly what they feared would happen if they moved to repossess that from Michael. Now the backlash might be worse. So, Sony could move now to take it, but it will depend on if he has a will and what it says.

With all this information, I wonder if it’s MJ’s estate that’s banking off the Box Set and Rock Band releases on 09–09-09. That makes me a tiny bit disgusted. We won’t even be rewarding Paul if we buy this stuff.

Doesn’t Paul still own part of the other half. To be honest, doesn’t concern me if he doesn’t make a dime off it for two reasons. One is that he is almost a billionaire already, he really doesn’t need the money anyway. Two is that in the 80s, he’s the one who taught Michael about bidding and told him about the Beatles catalog, which Paul himself intended to bid on. Michael outbid Paul….if Paul had really wanted it, he could have had it, he had more money than MJ then, he tried to get a bargain, it didn’t pay off.