The Beatles' finally on iTunes

Wed 17th Nov, 2010 in International News

The Beatles’ Apple Corps and iTunes’ parent company Apple Inc have finally reached a deal with EMI to release the entire Beatles catalogue on iTunes. All thirteen of the band’s albums, their officially-released compilations and assorted live footage are now available for legal download for the first time.

Though the two Apple companies have traded lawsuits since 1978, EMI was the party holding up the deal, as Paul McCartney told the BBC in May that “It’s been business hassles, not with us, or iTunes. It’s the people in the middle, the record label. There have been all sorts of reasons why they don’t want to do it.”

McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and George Harrison’s widow Olivia have all issued statements about the deal with McCartney commenting that “It’s fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around” and Ono declaring that “it’s so appropriate that we are doing this on John [Lennon]’s 70th birthday year”.

Apple Inc’s CEO, Steve Jobs was a little more lyrical in his statement, noting that “It has been a long and winding road to get here [but] thanks to The Beatles and EMI, we are now realising a dream we’ve had since we launched iTunes 10 years ago.”