Who owns Let It Be by The Beatles?

Answer 1

George Martin was the producer of the original sessions. Glyn Johns did some post-production work later in 1969. Neither man's efforts satisfied The Beatles. Phil Spector was brought in to see what he could do, after years of wanting to "produce the Beatles", and did the final post-production work. His overdubs and other touches went against the spirit of the original project, which was to make a "live album" in the studio, and particularly upset Paul McCartney, who hated the work done to "The Long And Winding Road", but it made the album complete... and sellable.

Answer 2

EMI owns the rights to the music recordings; Sony Music controls the music publishing (except for George Harrison and Ringo Starr's compositions); Apple Corps owns the rights to the movie, related visuals and recordings not owned or controlled by EMI.

Answer 3

In 1963, Northern Songs Ltd was formed specifically to publish the Beatles' songs - in particular the Lennon/McCartney songs. Unfortunately for the Beatles, they were quite "green" about publishing and didn't realise that they were minority shareholders - they assumed that because they'd written the songs they therefore "owned" them. In 1967 Northern Songs went public (in an ill-thought plan to avoid tax) this meant that it was open to bids and ATV (a TV company) bought out most of the shares. Many years later, Michael Jackson bought the company - ironically after taking advice from Paul McCartney about the value of songs. Northern Songs was absorbed into Sony/ATV and the Beatles songs are effectively owned by them.

Answer 4

The Beatles' trademarks and likeness are owned by their company, Apple Corps Ltd.

Answer 5

Sony Music, in a partnership with the late Michael Jackson's estate.

Answer 6

While there were mutliple versions, variations, and producers on this material, Phil Spector ended up producing the final version that was released.