I hope Jackson had a valid Will...and hope it contains the provision to pass on the rights to Paul (heck any of the original Beatles and their heirs, even).
At best, Paul is being disingenuous. At worst, he's a straight-up liar. Full disclosure: Paul is my favorite Beatle and I love him. If a restaurant, bar, rock club, or football stadium wants to publicly perform compositions, they must pay the three US public performance collection organizations: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. They pay a blanket fee per year to take the creations of a songwriter and play them for their patrons. This fee makes sense because the songwriter created a song, and Landshark Stadium profits when they play that song in their stadium to enhance their patron's experience. Those organizations then take that money and divide it amongst their member publishers and songwriters. When McCartney plays Landshark Stadium, the stadium does NOT report every single song performed at his concert. Therefore, Paul is lying that he has to pay to play his own songs. Yes, Landshark Stadium must have to pay a lot of $$$ to the collection organizations, but they'd have to pay the same dollar amount whether Paul plays there or not. Furthermore, Paul still gets paid the songwriter's share of public performance income directly from ASCAP. He just doesn't get the lion's share of the publisher's share of public performance income. Mind you, we're only dealing with publishing. Paul and the boys still make plenty of $$$ from record sales and merchandising. Finally, even if MJ leaves the catalogue to Macca, MJ has already sold various slices of the rights to Sony, and he has also used those assets as collateral for his well-documented spending sprees. I doubt Macca will never own the catalogue outright.
