Less Beatles=Better.

Where is that blue pills?

So get it from Alltunes/MP3Sparks?

Maybe if the Beatles record company hadn't called themselves Apple, then Apple wouldn't be so confused about letting Apple licence Apples tunes.

For fucks sake....

I'm sure that somewhere else sells tracks by The Beatles already, probably without the DRM too.

Check out the cover of Abbey Road ...

This imposter has no right to block the release of the real Beatles' music.

When are we actually going to have some decently-mastered copies of the Beatles catalogue on CD?

Not sure, maybe when they raise the missing couple from the dead and reform to record better master copies?

A daydreamer once heard: "Well let's be honest here, I am a very rich man, I don't really need anymore money, In fact I already have more than I could sensibly spend. As such I have decided to release all of the Beatles' back catalogue for the cost of the media only for non-commercial use. Enjoy people and thank you for making me very rich indeed. Besides most of it is only pissy pop music anyway"

All parties are hard at work sweating every detail, and maximising return, squeezing every drop of the $multi-millions visions floating before their eyes..... Meanwhile in the real world anyone who wanted the Beetles on their Ipod (other players and music formats are available) has already ripped them or downloaded them.

Revenue stream if they had pulled their heads out of their own fundimentals....$millions. Success!

Revenue stream now it is all too late.... $zero. Fail!

Still, not all bad news. The Lawyers will have got paid (pity it will be at the expense of actually paying the artists - but hey - they are only the ones who actually earnt the money in the first place with their talent so no great loss there then.)

Yes, it's obviously the Beatles fault for calling their company Apple in 1968 without realising that a computer company would use the same name in 1976.

"Maybe if the Beatles record company hadn't called themselves Apple, then Apple wouldn't be so confused about letting Apple licence Apples tunes."

Yeah, those bastard Beatles should have seen the technology company arriving 15 years down the road.

Anyhow - "Beatles stays"? Come on, Reg.

Me thinks greed is causing the flounder.

Dear Lord you'd have thought it was the recording of Jesus at the last supper we were talking about here. It's a bunch of musicians who managed to make it big many years ago, not the outbreak of world peace! for flips sake!

I thought Michael Jackson owned the rights to those.

And Mr. Jackson could do with the money about now.

"I think the majors at the moment, I'm not dissing them, but I don't think they really know what's going on," he said. "With the download culture, they are floundering a little bit."

Er, a little bit? Really? Such insight!

Michael Jackson has ownership interest in the songs but not the physical recordings. He'll benefit from sales on iTunes, but isn't in a position to license the recordings himself.

He could rerecord the Beatles' catalogue and sell that on iTunes, but that is probably not what people are after ...

As long as they're negotiating with peace and love.

I thought the Beatles' record company was Apple, not EMI, right?

Anyway, it does sound funny that Apple needs Apple to licence the Beatles' catalogue. I still prefer the old "Apple COMPUTER" name though. That name change was akin to Sun dropping their SUNW ticker; the SUN Workstation is what made them exist in the first place, as Apple was born with the Apple Computer, and later, the Macintosh.

@jonathan keith:

As an article in Mojo Magazine states they've been busy remastering the stuff for the past three years and are now done, I guess it is up to the record company lawyers and PR-people to get those records manufactured and into the stores. As we'll get both stereo and mono versions of most albums the rippers will have a field day getting it all onto Pirate Bay and such.