Overview
Sir Paul McCartney aims to reclaim his rights to popular Beatles songs in a complaint filed yesterday. The complaint seeks a declaratory judgment that his copyright termination notices are valid ahead of the 2018 expiration of the Copyright Act's term for pre-1978 copyrights - 56 years after McCartney and John Lennon began composing together in 1962. Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the defendant in the case, is the successor in interest to a group of music companies that purchased the copyrights to various Beatles songs in the 1960s. The termination notices were served from 2008 to 2015 and cover hundreds of songs composed by McCartney and Lennon, including "A Hard Day's Night," "Let it Be," "Hey Jude," and "Yesterday."
The case is pending before Judge Ramos.