Sony Music Publishing

• 1. Introduction

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  Sony Music Publishing controls more than six million songs as of the end of March 2025, making it the largest music publisher on earth by catalog size. But that library was not assembled quietly in some boardroom. It was built through one of the most dramatic acquisition stories in music history, a tale involving a pop superstar, a catalog of Beatles songs, and a dinner-table boast that nobody took seriously.

  At the center of it all sits the Lennon-McCartney song catalog, a collection of nearly every song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Who owns those songs, and how they came to be owned, shaped the company that would eventually become Sony Music Publishing. The questions worth sitting with are these: how did a British television company end up controlling the Beatles' back catalog? How did Michael Jackson beat out everyone else to buy it? And what happened when a friendship between two of the biggest names in music turned into a business rivalry?

• 2. ATV and the Beatles Catalog

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  Associated Television, known as ATV, began as a British broadcasting company within the ITV Network, founded in 1955 by Lew Grade. Over the following decades it expanded far beyond television, entering the record industry, music publishing, and film production.

  ATV moved into music publishing in 1966, acquiring stakes in New World Music and Jubilee Music. The decisive step came in 1969, when ATV acquired Northern Songs, the publisher of the Lennon-McCartney catalog. Northern Songs had been co-owned by Lennon, McCartney, Brian Epstein, and Dick James. It was James who held a controlling interest, and it was James who triggered the crisis by offering to sell his shares to ATV. Lennon and McCartney scrambled to buy a controlling stake themselves, but Grade's financial resources outmatched their bid.

  In 1972, ATV Music was formally established to manage all of the company's publishing interests, including Northern Songs. The catalog proved enormously valuable through the 1970s. ATV also entered into co-publishing agreements with Lennon and McCartney after their original Northern Songs contract expired in 1973.

  But by the late 1970s, ATV's parent company, by then called Associated Communications Corporation, was struggling. Film division losses dragged down profits from 1978 through 1981, and share prices fell sharply. Grade began entertaining offers for Northern Songs in 1981. McCartney and Yoko Ono jointly offered £21 million, but Grade declined to sell Northern Songs separately. Other interested parties, including CBS Songs, EMI Music Publishing, Warner Communications, Paramount Pictures, and a company called the Entertainment Co., wanted to buy ATV Music as a whole.

  Australian businessman Robert Holmes a Court then began acquiring ACC shares and launched a takeover in earnest in January 1982. Grade resigned as chairman and Holmes a Court took control. With him in charge, ATV Music was no longer on the market, at least not immediately. That would change a few years later, setting off one of the most fiercely contested catalog sales in the history of the music business.

• 3. Jackson's Dinner-Table Boast

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  In 1981, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney collaborated on songwriting and recording sessions. Jackson stayed at McCartney's home, and the two grew close. One evening at the dining table, McCartney produced a thick, bound notebook listing every song to which he owned publishing rights. Jackson examined the pages and asked how such songs could be bought and how they generated money. McCartney explained that music publishing was among the most lucrative parts of the business. Jackson's response was direct: he told McCartney he would one day buy the Beatles' songs. McCartney laughed and called it a great joke.

  It was not a joke. Jackson's attorney John Branca informed him in September 1984 that the ATV catalog was available for sale. Branca had handled Jackson's earlier catalog acquisitions and was well aware of what was at stake. Jackson's team checked whether McCartney intended to bid. McCartney's attorney said it was too expensive and his client was not entering the race. According to Bert Reuter, who negotiated the sale for Holmes a Court, McCartney had been given the first right of refusal and declined. Yoko Ono was also contacted and chose not to bid.

  The field of competitors included Charles Koppelman and Marty Bandier's Entertainment Co., Virgin Records, New York real estate developer Samuel J. LeFrak, and financier Charles Knapp. On the 20th of November 1984, Jackson submitted a bid of $46 million. Branca had recommended that figure after evaluating the catalog's earnings and learning of a competing bid of $39 million. The sale package covered not only the music copyrights but also buildings, a recording studio, and equipment.

  A non-binding memorandum of interest was signed in December 1984. Jackson's team then spent four months reviewing ATV Music's legal files, financial records, and every significant composition in the nearly 4,000-song catalog. It was painstaking work, and it would be tested repeatedly before any deal was done.

• 4. Eight Drafts and a Second Chance

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  Negotiations began in January 1985 and quickly became exhausting. Jackson's team described the process as frustrating; the seller's position shifted repeatedly. A representative for Holmes a Court compared the talks to a game of poker. The two sides appeared to reach a deal multiple times, only for new bidders to appear or fresh points of dispute to surface. The prospective agreement went through eight separate drafts.

  In May 1985, Jackson's team walked away. They had invested hundreds of hours and more than $1 million. In June, they learned that Koppelman and Bandier had reached a tentative agreement with Holmes a Court to buy the catalog for $50 million.

  Then, in early August, Holmes a Court called Jackson and talks resumed. Jackson raised his bid only modestly, to $47.5 million, but he held an important advantage: his team had already completed due diligence before any formal agreement, so the deal could close faster than any competitor's. He also agreed to visit Australia as a personal guest of Holmes a Court and to appear on the Channel Seven Perth Telethon.

  Holmes a Court added extra assets to sweeten the deal and agreed to establish a scholarship in Jackson's name at a United States university. John Branca closed the purchase on the 10th of August 1985. The price was $47.5 million. In October 1985, Jackson traveled to Perth, Western Australia to fulfill his contract obligation, appearing briefly on the telethon and meeting two children there.

  One detail sits at the edge of the whole transaction. The Beatles song "Penny Lane" was not included in the sale. Holmes a Court had given its rights to his then-teenage daughter Catherine before the sale, because it was her favorite Beatles song.

• 5. Friendship, Friction, and Fallout

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  Jackson chose to license the Beatles' songs for use in commercials, reasoning that it would introduce the music to a new generation. McCartney, who had himself used the Buddy Holly catalog in advertising, was privately saddened. Jackson, for his part, was reported to have expressed frustration with McCartney's reaction. His position was blunt: McCartney was one of the richest entertainers in the world at the time, with a net worth of $560 million and a royalty income of $41 million. If he had not wanted to invest $47.5 million in his own songs, Jackson said, he should not complain.

  McCartney described the aftermath on the Late Show with David Letterman shortly after Jackson died in 2009. He recalled trying to call Jackson after the acquisition, hoping that Jackson, now historically positioned as the owner of the catalog, might finally offer Lennon and McCartney improved royalty terms on songs they had signed away as young men in a back alley in Liverpool. Each time McCartney raised the subject, Jackson's reply was the same: "That's just business, Paul." McCartney received no raise. The two men drifted apart, McCartney said, with no dramatic falling-out, simply a slow withdrawal.

  Yoko Ono took a different view. Speaking in November 1990, Ono called Jackson's ownership a blessing and praised his care for the songs. She added that if she and McCartney had both sought ownership, their rivalry would have created its own problems. "If Paul got the songs, people would have said, 'Paul finally got John.' And if I got them, they'd say, 'Oh, the dragon lady strikes again.'" Her preference was for a third party who genuinely loved the music.

  At least one concrete artistic result followed the acquisition. Jackson recorded a version of "Come Together" from the Abbey Road album in 1986, primarily a Lennon composition. The recording was made for his 1987 album Bad but was left off that record and later appeared on HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. It was also featured in the 1988 film Moonwalker and released with an official video.

• 6. Building Sony/ATV

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  Sony had been moving into music and entertainment since acquiring CBS Records Inc. in January 1988, later renaming it Sony Music Entertainment Inc. in January 1991. A publishing division called CBS Music Publishing was formed soon after. Sony also acquired Nashville publisher Tree International Publishing in 1989 and later added the Fred Fisher publishing catalog of 3,000 songs and Nile Rodgers' Chic Music.

  In 1995, Sony offered Jackson $110 million for a 50% stake in a new joint venture combining ATV Music and Sony's publishing operation. Jackson sealed the deal during a concert in Tokyo, following hurried meetings and disagreements over price. The resulting company, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, became the second largest music publisher in the world. Michael P. Schulhof, President and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, praised Jackson as not only the most successful entertainer in history but also an astute businessman who understood the importance of copyrights.

  Administrative control was placed with Sony, which installed Paul Russell as chairman. Jackson served as a company director and attended board meetings regularly. The arrangement required unanimous agreement: neither side could implement a decision without the other's consent.

  In 2006, Sony gained operational control of Sony/ATV and obtained an option to purchase half of Jackson's stake at any time for a fixed price of $250 million. The catalog continued to grow. In July 2002, Sony/ATV bought Acuff-Rose Music for $157 million, adding 55,000 country music songs including works by Hank Williams, the Everly Brothers, and Roy Orbison. In 2007 came the purchase of Famous Music for $370 million, a catalog of more than 125,000 songs including "Moon River" and "Footloose", along with hits by Eminem, Akon, Shakira, and Björk. Famous Music had originally been founded by Paramount Pictures in 1928.

• 7. The EMI Acquisition and Full Ownership

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  In November 2011, Citigroup announced a plan to break up EMI. The recorded music division went to Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion. EMI Music Publishing was sold to a Sony/ATV-led consortium for around $2.2 billion. Consortium members included the Michael Jackson Estate, which held about 10% ownership, alongside investor David Geffen, the Blackstone investment firm, and the Abu Dhabi state-owned Mubadala fund. European Union approval came in April 2012, with a condition that some catalogs be sold off. The global publishing rights for Famous Music UK and Virgin Music were divested to BMG Rights Management in December 2012 for $150 million.

  Through the EMI deal, Sony/ATV administered about 30% of EMI Publishing while contributing a relatively modest share of the cash. In exchange, it agreed to administer the entire EMI catalog. The combined library surpassed three million songs, and estimated annual revenues exceeded $1.25 billion. Three EMI executives joined the Sony/ATV leadership: Guy Moot as president of UK and European creative, Susanna Ng as Asia managing director, and Clark Miller as executive vice president of international business affairs.

  In July 2018, Sony/ATV bought the Jackson estate's 10% stake in EMI for $287.5 million. That November, Sony acquired Mubadala's 60% equity interest in EMI Music Publishing for $2.3 billion, based on an enterprise value of $4.75 billion. Sony now owned 100% of EMI Music Publishing. One effect of these transactions was that the Columbia-Screen Gems catalog came back under common ownership with Columbia Pictures, which had sold those rights to EMI in 1976.

  In September 2016, Sony had separately acquired the Jackson estate's stake in Sony/ATV itself for around $750 million, with the revenue placed in trust for Jackson's children. In 2024, the estate sold half of Jackson's Mijac Music catalog to Sony Music Group for $600 million. That catalog, which holds the rights to songs written by Jackson himself, had remained with the estate through all the earlier transactions.

• 8. The Copyright Fight and What Remained

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  In January 2017, Paul McCartney filed suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV, seeking to reclaim his share of the Lennon-McCartney catalog beginning in 2018. His legal basis was a provision in United States copyright law allowing authors to reclaim rights assigned to a publisher after 56 years, for works published before 1978. McCartney and Sony reached a confidential settlement in June 2017.

  By April 2019, Jon Platt had become CEO and Chairman of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, following the expiration of longtime chief Martin Bandier's contract. That August, Sony/ATV and Sony Music Entertainment were folded together under a newly formed umbrella called Sony Music Group. The company formally dropped the ATV name in favor of Sony Music Publishing.

  The library now stands at more than six million songs, administered or owned as of the end of March 2025. The path from a British television company buying Northern Songs in 1969 to the world's largest music publisher spans decades of acquisitions, partnership negotiations, and legal disputes. At each turning point, the Lennon-McCartney catalog sits near the center: first as the asset that gave ATV its prestige, then as the prize that drove Jackson's audacious purchase, then as the subject of McCartney's lawsuit. The settlement McCartney reached with Sony in 2017 was never disclosed, but it resolved a dispute that had its roots in the moment a young Paul McCartney signed his songs away in a back alley in Liverpool.