<P> Three years later, Michael Jackson purchased ATV for a reported $47.5 million . The acquisition gave him control over the publishing rights to more than 200 Beatles songs, as well as 40,000 other copyrights . In 1995, in a deal that earned him a reported $110 million, Jackson merged his music publishing business with Sony, creating a new company, Sony / ATV Music Publishing, in which he held a 50% stake . The merger made the new company, then valued at over half a billion dollars, the third largest music publisher in the world . In 2016, Sony acquired Jackson's share of Sony / ATV from the Jackson estate for $750 million . </P> <P> Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of their songs, Lennon's estate and McCartney continue to receive their respective shares of the writers' royalties, which together are 331⁄3% of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere around the world between 50 and 55% . Two of Lennon and McCartney's earliest songs--"Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You"--were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before they signed with James . McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in the mid-1980s, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by McCartney's company MPL Communications . </P> <P> On 18 January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in the United States district court against Sony / ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon--McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018 . Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years . McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017 . </P>

What was the name of the first solo album made by a beatle