“The Beatles songs — all of them — will be offered for downloading soon. That’s what Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple Corps Ltd. and the man who’s protected the Beatles legacy for the last 40 years — told me over the weekend,” Roger Friedman reports for Fox News.
Friedman reports, “‘All 13 core albums, the ones originally released on CD in 1987, have been remastered,’ Aspinall told me. ‘At some point they will all be released, probably at the same time.’”
“Now that Aspinall has ‘won’ his longstanding lawsuit with Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer), he says downloaded Beatle songs will be coming to us soon,” Friedman reports.
“If you missed it, Apple Corps. sued Apple Computer in 2002 over trademark violations after signing a 1991 agreement — and Steve Jobs paying the Beatles about $43 million,” Friedman reports. “Jobs et al won, but the case went to appeal. Before the appeals court could make a ruling, a settlement was reached.”
Friedman reports, “The Beatles, sources say (and not Aspinall, whom I didn’t even discuss this with), may have won royalties on Apple iTunes/iPod hardware as part of the settlement. The settlement didn’t address downloading. But now Aspinall says that when the Beatles songs do get put on the Internet officially, ‘it will be on all the services, not just one.’ So all the Beatles songs will be found on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Winston" for the heads up.]
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