Paul McCartney is
pursuing a new legal angle in his continuing efforts to recover his ownership of songs he wrote while in the Beatles.
Mr. McCartney’s suit is over what is known as copyright termination:
the right of authors — or any creators — to reclaim ownership of their
works from publishers after a specific length of time has passed. It was
part of the 1976 copyright act and in recent years has become a potent
force in the music industry as performers and songwriters have used the
law to regain control of their work.
In
Mr. McCartney’s suit, filed in United States District Court in
Manhattan, lawyers for the singer detailed the steps they have taken
over the last nine years to reclaim Mr. McCartney’s piece of the
copyrights in dozens of Beatles songs he wrote with John Lennon,
including “Love Me Do,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “All You Need Is
Love.” That process involved filing numerous legal notices, which, the
suit says, should be enough to guarantee that Sony/ATV would return the
rights to Mr. McCartney, starting in October 2018.
Here's the
full complete, if you're into that sort of thing.
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As mentioned last week, Beatles associate "Magic Alex" Mardas died Jan. 13 at age 74. Since then, a number of media outlets have published articles about this controversial figure, including
Billboard,
Rolling Stone and
Huffington Post.
Mardas was director of Apple Corps' Electronic Division and is described in most accounts as a self-proclaimed "electronics wizard" who promised all sorts of inventions he never delivered on, yet Mardas disputed this characterization. His Wikipedia entry details some of these:
The Independent
newspaper apologised on 21 August 2006, writing that on 14 June 2006,
the paper had wrongly reported Mardas' involvement with Apple
Electronics Ltd. They corrected the earlier piece by writing that Mardas
had not been a company employee, but a director and shareholder of
Apple Electronics, and was not sacked, but resigned his directorship in
May 1971, while still retaining his shareholding, until giving it to
Apple Corps some years later. The paper accepted that Mardas “did not
claim to have invented electric paint, a flying saucer or a recording
studio with a ‘sonic force field’ or cause his employers to waste money
on such ideas. We apologise to Mr. Mardas for these errors".[60]
In 2008, Mardas won the right to sue The New York Times in England, in relation to an online article which said he was a charlatan.
In a story about the Maharishi, Allan Kozinn had written: "Alexis
Mardas, a supposed inventor and charlatan who had become a Beatles’
insider".[63][64]
After an appeal, Mardas won the right to continue his case of defamation against The New York Times in 2009.[66][67] After The New York Times produced a witness, Sir Harold Evans,
who gave evidence supporting the journalistic responsibility of the
paper, Mardas said he would not pursue the case further, on condition
that the paper would publicly explain that by labelling him as a
charlatan, it did not mean to imply that he was a con man.[68]
On 4 March 2010, The New York Times
published an editor's update to the 2008 article, saying: "While
expressing skepticism about his work as an inventor during that period,
the article did not accuse Mr. Mardas of engaging in fraudulent dealings
or criminality... The Times’s reporting on those events was attributed
to Paul McCartney and based on widely published accounts from books and
magazines".[42]
You can read a statement Mardas made in 2010 after suing the
Times here. While it's from Mardas' own side of things, there's some interesting reading here about Apple, the Maharish and more.
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More on Magic Alex: Yoko made this tweet following his passing. I didn't see anything from Paul, Ringo or other "Beatles Family" members.
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The Liverpool Echo posted a new
video interview with Quarryman Rod Davis
.
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A Mercedes-Benz 230SL Roadster owned and barely driven by John Lennon is
up for auction.
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Artist Peter Blake has
created another artwork based his Sgt. Pepper LP cover. This time its a giant collage adorning Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel in London.
The star-studded line-up will include the likes of Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley.
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Meet the Beatles For Real posted a couple of fun issues from Ringo's days as a model for Japan's Simple Life clothing line. Dreamy!
And, from the same blog, further proof that the Beatles started everything:
George's man bun:
