Apple iTunes, at Long Last, Gets Rights to Beatles

Wall Street Journal ^ | Nov. 15, 2010 | Ethan Smith

[re_tail20]

Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog.

Apple Inc. is preparing to announce that its iTunes Store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, according to people familiar with the situation, a move that would fill in a glaring gap in the collection of the world's largest music retailer.

The deal resulted from talks that were taking place as recently as last week among executives of Apple, representatives of the Beatles and their record label, EMI Group Ltd,, according to these people. These people cautioned that Apple could change plans at the last minute.

Spokesmen for Apple, EMI and Paul McCartney declined to comment. Apple on Monday posted a notice on the home page of its iTunes Store that it would make "an exciting announcement" Tuesday morning. The agreement would represent a watershed in a fraught, decades-long relationship between two of the biggest icons in their respective fields. The two sides have traded lawsuits since 1978, when the Beatles alleged that the computer maker, then known as Apple Computer, infringed on the band's trademark. That's because the Beatles in 1968 created a wholly owned entity called Apple Corps Ltd., that acted as an arts-promotion company and owned Apple Records. Though EMI retained ownership of the Beatles recordings, the Apple logo was printed on their albums.

[packrat35]

Real geniuses, these people who hold the Beatles rights. Their refusal to grant the rights to download LEGALLY for so long means that people have been downloading them for FREE for the past 10 years.

Way to move into the 21st century dudes!

[relictele]

I suppose the irony is that Beatles purists favor the mono mixes for albums originally issued in mono so any hype about remixes/remastering will be largely wasted.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Awesome.
Awesome.
AWESOME.
I hope they get some good bootlegs and studio takes up there, too.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

The man is constitutionally incapable of completing a song. If you listen to his stuff for long, you pick up a pattern, that his "songs" are mostly crazy-quilts of ideas, none of which are sufficient to make a song, but string a bunch of them together and it sort of lasts long enough to be called one.

A pretty decent observation, though there are stand-outs, like Yesterday. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was one of Paul's most noticeable non-John-involvement achievements.

Paul and John also squashed George Harrison for far too long. Sure, All Things Must Pass has some filler, but the metal of that album would've worked out magnificently under the Beatles brand.

[dayglored]

> there are stand-outs, like Yesterday. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was one of Paul's most noticeable non-John-involvement achievements.

I agree. "Yesterday" is a monumental song. I've performed it (singing over solo guitar accompaniment) and it affects me tremendously. Very powerful tune.

It's no coincidence that when Lennon tweaked McCartney about the changes in the breakup, he used "Yesterday" as the example of how good Paul used to be.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I've performed it (singing over solo guitar accompaniment) and it affects me tremendously. Very powerful tune.

Nice! One of my favorite Beatles recordings is from Anthology, I believe, and it's the Yesterday when Paul is instructing the others about the key and chord progression before he jumps into it. Then he just leaps in and it sounds flat-out awesome.

Had the opportunity to see Paul at Fenway a few years back. The dude flat-out still rocks profoundly, and to my great joy, he played a Beatles-heavy set.

[ReignOfError]

Didn’t Michael Jackson own the rights or something like that?

Jacko owned the publishing rights -- that is, the songwriter's rights. The rights to the recordings are owned, as they have been since 1968, by Apple Corps.

[a fool in paradise]

Senior citizens who remember the Beetles are already lining up in front of the iTunes store downtown.

PING!

[KevinB]

I really liked Macca’s first two solo efforts, “McCartney” and “Ram.” They were experimental, even avant garde in parts, much better than his Wings stuff.

Yes, they are two good ones. Most of McCartney's solo stuff is crap. Check out his Flaming Pie album, though (deleting the Steve Miller stuff). It's as good as anything he ever did.

[KevinB]

What made Lennon and McCartney work was that both were good filters of the other’s crap.

Yes, Lennon said as much in an interview before he died: That they were each others' BS detectors.

[dfwgator]

Paul and John also squashed George Harrison for far too long. Sure, All Things Must Pass has some filler, but the metal of that album would've worked out magnificently under the Beatles brand.

George wrote the best of the Post-Beatles songs, "It Don't Come Easy" for Ringo.

[ReignOfError]

Correction: Apple Corps owns the rights to the later Beatles’ recordings; the earlier material belongs to EMI. According to reports coming out today, one major hurdle in getting the full catalog online was squabbling between the two.

There are also reports that Amazon and Google were in the running, but Apple outbid them.