US rights to six Beatles songs sold for first time in 50 years

The US rights of six of The Beatles’ earliest songs will change hands for the first time in almost half a century.

A portfolio of copyrights including hits such as She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There and From Me To You has been snapped up by small music publisher Round Hill Music despite interest from larger global groups.

Round Hill Music is a year-old US start up and bought the catalogue with Adage Classics, an intellectual property rights group. It declined to disclose the terms of the deal.

Music lawyer Michael Sukin said that the songs could be worth up to $10m or 500,000 times what they were once offered for in 1964.

New York song promoter George Pincus acquired US and Canadian rights to the John Lennon and Paul McCartney songs after seeing The Beatles perform in 1963.

Although what Pincus paid was not disclosed, he offered the songs rights for sale at £200 in 1964.

Mr. Pincus’ sons Leonard and Irwin resisted approaches from groups including Sony/ATV, the joint venture between Sony and Michael Jackson that already holds rights to 251 Lennon and McCartney songs. Sony/ATV does, however, have an interest in the six songs and keeps a percentage of the income they generate.

“It wasn’t simply a commercial transaction,” said chief executive of Adage Classics, Herb Jordan. “We had to convince them we’d bring a level of respect, expertise and creativity.”

Round Hill Music partner and former president of Sony/ATV Richard Rowe described the Pincus brothers’ decision to sell as “a dream come true.”

With the nature of the transaction and the potential future of The Beatles’ record company EMI in mind, president of Round Hill Music said, “As the majors continue to consolidate, they have fewer and fewer staff to manage more and more songs,” and went on to say that Round Hill could offer a higher level of service, pitching songs more actively for use in advertisements, films or recordings by a new generation of performers.

Source: Music Week