Beatles win court battle over Shea Stadium footage

Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and their Apple Corps partners have won a legal spat in New York over copyright of footage from the Beatles’ 1965 Shea Stadium show.
Lawyers representing the estate of the concert’s late promoter Sid Bernstein filed suit last year (16), seeking the rights to the master tapes of the gig, claiming the Fab Four’s manager, Brian Epstein, had taken custody of the footage without permission – and it belonged to Bernstein.
The late promoters attorneys took issue with the fact the footage had been used in documentaries like The Beatles at Shea Stadium and last year’s (16) Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years.
But on Wednesday (26Jul17), lawyers representing Apple Corps, the company the Beatles set up, were handed a victory in court when U.S. District Judge George Daniels dismissed the case filed by Sid Bernstein Presents LLC executives.
He ruled the company bosses had failed to show it deserved control over footage, and therefore damages for the film’s documentary use.