Hints that the Beatles iTunes launch getting closer? 1 to 2 weeks?
The whole “Beatles on iTunes speculation” thing has pretty much burned me out. I am perhaps one of the few people who doesn’t really care one way or the other about whether or not the Beatles come to iTunes. Sure, it would be a little exciting if the Beatles were an iTunes exclusive artist, but odds are that isn’t going to happen. I own all the Beatles albums on CD already, and while I realize Beatles fanatics rival only the KISS Army in loyalty and their need to re-buy every re-issued track, I think most of them will want a hard copy of the next money-sucking re-mix Yoko and McCartney sanction – a digital download won’t cut it (unless they make it sound like vinyl… some people might actually pay more to get their “hiss” back into Beatles recordings).
But enough opining. That only seems to get me in trouble recently. 🙂 Faithful Macenstein reader Art Vandelay has provided a ray of hope that all the Beatles on iTunes discussion may be finally nearing an end:
“This is on the speculation side, but it has supporting details. I was watching American Idol tonight, and Ryan Seacrest made an announcement that drew a ton of cheers from the audience…
“We are proud to announce that the rights to all of the Lennon/McCartney Tracks have been given to us this year. We have been trying to get them to let us use their songs for years, and starting next week, it will be added to our catalogue.”
Sound familiar? They’ve been trying to get the Beatles for years, and this year we’ve finally gotten the rights? As the editor of an Apple blog, you know what I’m referring to. If that’s not enough, when asked in an interview when to expect the Beatles on iTunes, Steve said the following…
A: We’d love to have the Beatles. It will happen — I hope by the first half of next year. As soon as they’re ready, we’re ready.This interview was in 2007 by USA Today. For the whole interview, read here. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-09-05-jobs-qanda_N.htm
Therefore, I am making the guess that Apple will announce that the Beatles are on iTunes at the Media Event, or one of the Tuesdays around that time to coincide with their weekly Tuesday announcements this year.
– Art Vandelay”
Sounds eerily plausible. If Sony/ATV Music Publishing (which owns the rights to the Beatles’ songs in question) is willing to sell out to American Idol, which is one step above (or below) allowing songs to be used in a tampon commercial, then odds are they are getting ready to cash in on the digital downloads scene. And who loves digital downloads? THE KIDS! That’s right. And who watched American Idol? THE KIDS!
And Art Vandelay. It’s all falling into place…
What is “The Beatles” some stupid kids show?
No one cares about that.
The Beatles were created by Sid and Marty Krofft over 40 years ago. Kind of like the Bugaloos and Banana Splits, if you remember them. Basically the “Wiggles” of the 60s, for you young folks.
-The Doc
I don’t really understand in general why people are so enthusiastic about buying downloadable music when you can usually buy a CD for a couple of dollars more (and used CDs for less). With the physical CD it’s possible to rip the songs in whatever format and bitrate that you want, plus you have a backup that you can also listen to on any CD player. I guess it can be chalked up to impatience since they don’t have to wait to receive the physical CD. Part of it too may be that they only want one or two songs and not an entire CD. But there’s another option.
The only digital music service that makes sense to me is a rental service like Napster or Rhapsody. I subscribe to Napster’s “To Go” service because it allows me to listen to whatever I want. I can sample artists that I’ve never heard of before and if I don’t like them, I haven’t lost any money. A lot of music I’ll listen to for a few weeks and then get tired of, so I just delete it from my player.
The main attraction of Napster for me (in addition to having access to millions of songs that I can listen to whenever I want) is that I discover new artists I would never have listened to otherwise, and many of these artists have become favorites. Often I’ll go out and buy a CD if it’s something I really like and if I want to have a permanent, higher quality copy of the music.
I guess ultimately music, rather than “owning” music, is more important to me. If I can have access to millions of songs for $15 per month and if I can listen to those songs whenever I want, where ever I want, then that’s far better then spending $15 for 15 DRM songs that don’t even match the quality of a CD.
Michael Jackson is hurting for money. Only a matter of time before it hits itunes. I can totally see them using Idol to get the teens to buy Beatles tracks. Actually quite smart.
It’s coming. I suspect the hold up involves their effort to remaster the catalog. These efforts often take longer than anticipated with their having to pass muster with the owners. I hope the result will result in happy customers.
You can use a tube preamp to regain some of the warmth of the old LPs.
Nothing to do with Sony, nothing to do with Jackson. The Beatles recordings (not their publishing) are controlled by EMI and Apple Corps, the Beatles’ licensing company. Neil Aspinall, who ran Apple Corps for 40 years, was notoriously strict about maintaining the Beatles’ air of exclusivity and refused to license the recordings for digital download. Now that he is out of the picture, having resigned in the wake of the Apple Corps/Apple Computer settlement, the Beatles and EMI can go ahead and negotiate a deal with iTunes. A deal may even be in place, but the tracks won’t go up until the remastering has been completed, which is supposed to be sometime this year. (Probably not yet.)
One of the reasons why people are excited about this is that the sound quality of the current CDs are hideous. Early CD mastering technology makes the CDs sound hollow and tinny. Listen to the recent releases – “One”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Let It Be-Naked” and even “Love”. The sound quality is phenomenal compared to the original CDs.
I agreed:
http://www.variousandsundry.com/2008/02/28/wild-sourceless-rumorprediction-of-the-day/
The Beatles’ rights are separated; the people (Sony) who can sell performance rights to Idol are not the same people (EMI/Apple Corps) who can sell downloads of original Beatles performances via download.
I do know, were I Apple Corps, Ltd., I’d still be pissed at Apple, Inc. over the trademark stuff, and not let them anywhere near Beatles songs. I’d sell MP3s through someone else (Amazon, say), with a co-marketing campaign that ran full-page ads in magazines with the Apple Corps logo and the text “You can only download Apple Corps songs from Amazon.”
I’m a huge Beatles and KISS fan & frankly speaking, I don’t care much about iTunes for them. I have a complete set of Beatles CD and KISS CDs & it’s a collector’s item. With groups like them, the music is not the only thing that matters but the album covers as well. You can’t get that on iTunes, can you? If I want something I love to be put on iTunes, it should only be those one-hit wonders with a single hit song. It would be a waste of time buying the whole CD and you only want one song from it but for Beatles and KISS’ records, you can’t just do that!
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