Sony is reportedly pushing Michael Jackson to renegotiate a restrictive publishing pact indicative of how the old school music industry got itself into such a mess.

Apparently a clause in the existing agreement between Jackson and Sony prevents the company from backing a music publisher to compete with their joint Sony/ATV venture which controls the copyrights to all 252 Beatles songs and more.
Sony BMG is desperate to enter the music publishing market to offset the drop in recorded music sales.