I've never heard that Michael Jackson attempted to return any publishing rights to Sly Stone. Jackson didn't need Sly's consent to return the publishing rights... all he needed to do was establish a trust fund in the name of Sylvester Stewart (Sly's real name) and relinquish his claim to Sly's songs and restore publishing rights to him.
Sly's catalog is fallen under the control of Sony International who agreed to form a joint venture with the Jackson estate. Which means Michael Jackson's parents will be the primary beneficiaries but Sony will have firm control of the entire content of the Mijack music publishing empire because Jackson was plagued with debt at the time of his death.
Sony's control of Mijack is bad news for Sly or any other artist who wants to repurchase their publishing rights from the Sony entertainment consortium. Sly's back catalog produces at least 1 million dollars in mechanical publishing revenues and maybe another $500,000 in performance revenues per year.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
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