The ownership of the Beatles' back catalogue is a complicated and messy affair.
Although the songs were obviously written by one of music's most famous partnerships - John Lennon and Paul McCartney - they do not own the rights to a number of their biggest hits. That's mainly down to Michael Jackson, who outbid McCartney back in the 1980s to buy ATV Music, which owned the publishing rights to songs including 'Love Me Do', 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and 'All You Need is Love'.
In 2016 Jackson's estate sold itsstake to Sony for a whopping $750 million but McCartney had begun the process of reclaiming the songs via a loophole that would make them his in 2018.
However, it seems that Sony have basically ignored his efforts to resolve the issue and may not give up the rights without a fight - so McCartney is now suing them.
A spokesperson for him told Pitchfork: "Paul McCartney has today filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York against Sony/ATV to confirm his ownership in his US reversionary copyrights, which are granted to him by US copyright law, in the songs he wrote with John Lennon and recorded with The Beatles. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and bears the case no. 17cv363.”
