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On January 20 of this interesting year of twenty and seventeen, Billboard.com took readers through a timeline of the ownership of the Beatles catalog of 250 songs. It is an interesting read, especially if one wonders how the original members lost control of it in the first place.
You know what they say about deals when they start to stink? They say follow the money."
So I've been following the money for several years as the catalog changed hands for massive sums of money. Wow. Ten of millions and even more to transfer...errrrr...purchase the publishing rights. To sum up the Billboard.com article, Sing this along to the tune of Smoke That Cigarette:
Them pay They.
They pay Him.
Him needs money; sink or swim!
Next thing you know, They own it all again. But,
Him and Them are left out in the cold, and
Him and Them cry and moan, but
They say "Your turn next, it's all a game." So the
Debt gets transferred, hither and yon,
Banks none the wiser, and fans not concerned, but
"Something's nasty in the woodshed," one woman says.
That woman is me and here's why I say that.
One: The value of a catalog is based on how much it can earn.
Two: A catalog earns by selling (downloads, CDs, vinyl) or licensing.
Three: When a famous AC/DC song can be licensed for $500 for a 30-second spot that will run for less than a week on a sports show and that song is chosen because the network cannot afford to license another song, then we can clearly see licensing is not where the money is coming in from since —
Four: The Beatles' songs are priced in the upper stratosphere and nobody can afford that, so
Five: The valuation of the Beatles catalog is out of sync with its sale price, therefore —
Six: There's something nasty in the woodshed.
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