According to George Harrison, The Beatles Could Have Sued a Lot of People
There are a lot of caveats to success, and one band that is certainly no stranger to them is The Beatles. While success brought The Beatles everything they wanted and more, it also brought them unexpected plights. Other than some of the more obvious issues, another issue The Beatles’ success entailed was the illegal use of their likeness and music. Consequently, George Harrison once divulged that The Beatles had the grounds to sue a lot of people.
Thanks to The Beatles’ success and notoriety, parties have used their likeness and music in a plethora of different ways. Folks have printed their faces on mugs, t-shirts. and other random pieces of memorabilia. Furthermore, offshoot cover bands and shows have used their music quite extensively. Well, according to George Harrison, most of it was illegal.
Why George Harrison Thought The Beatles Had the Grounds To Sue
Concerning the intellectual property and copyright crimes against The Beatles, George Harrison sat down with Rolling Stone and briefly disclosed his thoughts on the matter. He told the publication, “There’s not much more we [the Beatles] can be sued for, but we can sue a lot of other people.”
“Being split and diversified over the years has made it difficult to consolidate certain Beatles interests,” he continued. “For example, all those naughty Broadway shows and stupid movies that have been made about the Beatles, using Beatles names and ideas, are all illegal.”
Harrison attributed some of this illegal action to The Beatles’ negligence of the situation brought on by their internal turmoil. “But because we’ve been arguing among ourselves all these years, people have had a free-for-all,” said Harrison. However, at the time of the interview, The Beatles had seemingly figured out a solution to the issue.
“Now we’ve gotten to the point where everybody’s agreed, and we’ve allocated a company to go out and sue them all,” Harrison said. “It’s terrible, really. People think we’re giving all these producers and people permission to do it and that we’re making money out of it, but we don’t make a nickel.”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Peter Burditt
