Business is business, and it always comes with a cost. A cost we often see people pay in business of all types is that of friendship. It’s a story as old as time, friends, betraying friends in light of the financial reward that betrayal entails; it’s nothing new. However, one fairly surprising story that follows this nature is the business relationship that tainted the friendship of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.
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We say “fairly surprising” because it is very often that you hear about one musician ripping off another musician in a purely business sense. Sure, musicians steal from other musicians all the time, and sometimes they pay. Although what other musicians have you heard of that have cunningly duped one of their peers? We can’t name one off the top of our heads, but the most notable story of this type of unethical business tactic is when Michael Jackson purchased The Beatles music catalog in 1985.
In 1985, after Paul McCartney gave Michael Jackson some career advice, urging him to get into music publishing, Michael Jackson bought The Beatles’ music catalog in a deal that cost $47.5 million. Specifically, Michael Jackson purchased the ATV Music publishing catalog, which included over 250 Beatles songs. Eventually, in 2016, Jackson’s estate sold their ownership to Sony Music Publishing.
The Piece of Advice that Came Back to Bite Paul McCartney
Recalling the story in an interview on The Howard Stern Show, McCartney recalled, “He was talking to me and asking me about business advice, and one of the things I said to him was, ‘Think about getting into music publishing.’”
“And he looked at me, I thought he was joking, he said, ‘I’m gonna get yours’… But it turned out to be true. Which was cool, somebody had to get it, I suppose.” After the deal went down, McCartney reached out to Michael concerning a raise in the royalty payments he received from The Beatles’ catalog. However, according to McCartney, Jackson replied, “Ohh, that’s just business.”
Further recalling his attitude towards Michael Jackson at the time, McCartney added, “We’ve never talked about it; he won’t even answer my letters. So, you know what, we haven’t got that great of a relationship.”
What do you think about this deal? Was Jackson’s alleged perspective justifiable? Was it, in fact, just business? To each their own, but the story does raise some questions in regard to the definition of “rightful” ownership in the creative industry as a whole.
Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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