It’s been a hard day’s night, and we’re sure Steve Jobs and company over at Apple have been working like a dog to convince Paul McCartney that iTunes should be able to sell the Beatles Catalogue. Whether it’s the fact that he’s going through a bitter, not to mention expensive divorce with Heather Mills or that Apple just kept on him long enough, rumor has it that the songs will be coming “within months.”
The Beatles, which are known as one of the most successful pop and rock bands of all time have recorded over 200 songs. It’s not clear at this point how many of those songs will be available on iTunes but what is clear is how much Steve Jobs paid to get the catalogue… $400 million dollars! It sure is a lot of money, but what an investment for Apple. That money will be shared among Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, as well as the families of George Harrison and John Lennon. Also receiving some of the money will be Michael Jackson, EMI, and Sony who own publishing rights or certain recordings.
Hopefully those songs will be available on iTunes Plus without the DRM because there are going to be lots of Beatles fans wanting to buy the songs, but without the restrictions.
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Tags: Web Sites, Apple, iTunes
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that price is rather low considering the genius it took to create them over the span of a decade.
and the long term earning potential of that catalog is crazy, i suspect apple will make billions from it within the next few years.
its a shame though, that lunatic Michael Jackson will be collecting money from this deal.
Why wasn’t it there to begin with?
I thought that was kinda strange, too.
The Beatles wouldn’t allow it for some reason, and it appears that they were holding out for some big money.
The long time earning potential could be pretty big, although most die-hard Beatles fans already have records, casette tapes, and CD’s. It should be interesting to see how well they sell.
Number one, don’t “front” Mike because he bought one great investment in his “hey day” throughly pissing Sir Paul off in the process who really wanted the whole thing but failed to acquire it totally oh well!! (Or as they say Bloody Hell)
Secondly, Apple got a deal when you take into consideration the falling dollar value and current currency exchanges verses the standing of the British Pound (which is worth two of our dollars) so Sir Paul only really made half as much as he should have on the final transaction(s). Hey that’s the music business for you.
The money is “only worth half as much” to the seller is point here, folks but I guess almost anything beats “a blank” when your paying lawyer fees and trying your best to offset the expenditures.
So much for the terms ” for better or worst, till the fight for money do us part”. This is truly messed up but these are the times in which we live.
Just my dimes worth, bye.
“The Beatles wouldn’t allow it for some reason, and it appears that they were holding out for some big money.”
Where did you get that from? It was because The Beatles own the Apple trademark from their own record company. But Apple computers and The Beatles came to an agreement that they’d let Apple computers use it as long as they stayed out of the music industry. Of course they then released the iPod and iTunes and The Beatles weren’t happy as they were breaking their agreement. Then there was a court case in which the courts said The Beatles’ record label was no longer active.
Thus the falling out happened. When you’re worth £725 million I don’t think money comes in to it.
I don’t disagree that there were some underlying causes of Apple not being allowed to sell the Beatles music, but if $400 million was enough to sway their thinking I would say that money had a big part of it.
What’s the reasoning that AC/DC isn’t on there? I would probably say it is a money issue with them as well.
The Beatles have a history of taking bad deals, a tradition started by Brian Epstein. First they gave away half of the first four years publishing rights, then they gave away ~90% of all merchandise, then ~90% of “A Hard Days Night” film royalties. Then there were the Apple Retail and Apple Records fiascos. $400 million sounds pretty good in comparison.