Good Day Sunshine as Beatles hits iTunes? Er, nope Sky News has yanked a story that reported Yoko Ono claiming that the Beatles' catalogue was finally coming to Apple's iTunes. The story carried the headline: "The whole of the Beatles back catalog will be made to buy on iTunes, Yoko Ono has told Sky News." However, the report is no longer available online and Sky bosses …
the beatles is a business - the money is in cd sales which will sell by the bucket, therefore they don't need to put them onto itunes until next year, which will give another sales boost.....apple will probably make some joke about the rolling stones being on itunes......forget the beatles for now
File this under "Things I Don't Get", because I don't see the big deal about the Beatles' songs being on iTunes. The people who want The Beatles have the CDs already (if not the 45s). Seriously, I don't see how a popular pop band that broke up 40 years ago is going to do more for Apple than the latest rappo-pop sensation that all the kids are going on about. Maybe it's an image thing, but it seems to me that it would harm the Beatles' image as old and unimportant rather than the Apple/iTunes image of the best place to legally buy music online.
I also recall that it took 4 or 5 years to get the band's catalog onto CD.
Paris, because she knows the importance of making yourself open to new media
in which case the earliest recordings are already out of copyright and there are only another 5-6 years before all the recordings are out of copyright.
Not sure how that works with regard to the writers copywrite which lasts 70 years - does the 70 years copywrite for the writer supercede the 50 copywrite on the recording or does the 70 year copywrite simply prevent others making their own performances of the song without permission but people can distribute the original recordings?
Since most Beatles CDs seem to be priced at around £13-£15 for 25-35 mins of music, I have never bought any of their CDs (although I did get their greatest hits albuim for my birthday once)
Compare this to the hefty £5 I paid for Dark Side Of The Moon and you know that someone somewhere is making a terrific amount of cash from their back catalog.
...and it was in the news today (oh boy) that they are releasing shedloads of their albums in a new "stereo remaster" and initially at least in a box set costing an arm and a leg.
Now, they claim the delays are due to bickering about things like whether it should be Lennon/McCartney or McCartney/Lennon on tracks. I just don't buy it. It's certainly not the case for on-line music - we won't have a printed album cover in our hands, so we won't see that information.
I believe that it's because they know that no-one is going to buy tracks like "Her Majesty" via iTunes - if you have to buy the whole album then they make a lot more money than if you only buy 10-15 tracks from their back catalog...
"and we look forward to the day when we can make the music available digitally."
They talk the talk but won't walk the walk.
Too bad because it is too late. EMI are trying to milk the cash cow with the new releases and want people to buy the lot in one go. Putting the tracks on iTunes will allow customers to buy the tracks they want without having to buy the rest. Not gonna happen for a long time.
"Isn't the UK Copyright on recordings 50 years? in which case the earliest recordings are already out of copyright and there are only another 5-6 years before all the recordings are out of copyright."
Yes it is, and no, they aren't.
The Beatles first (real) single came out in October 62. So the earliest mechanical copyright exists until Oct 2012. Which is still three years in the future.
No'one gives a shit about the single where they backed Tony Sheridan in early 62, or the even earlier german live bootlegs which were eventually given a legit release in the noughties.
I even have them on my ipods but do they get played, nope .. I even skip them when they come up on shuffle mode. They were the Take That of their age .. file alongside Elvis under influential but not essential.
Musically, I'm stuck (on repeat) in the 80's and the only 60's music I like is the original 45RPM single of Telstar by the Tornados ... daaah dah dah, dah der der dah dah daah.
I read the Register eight days a week, even when the rain comes, even Yesterday, but Tomorrow Never Knows.
You don't have to be Dr Robert or a Paperback Writer to know that The Word is that writers copyright is 70 years after the death of (all) the composer(s), and McCartney is still very much alive. He's Here, There and Everywhere.
Recording copyright is 50 years after the release. The first releases were 1962 and Sgt Pepper was 1967, Let it Be 1970, so not available until 2012-2020 - in fact, when I'm Sixty-Four and I hope, In My Life..
From Me to You, I think Sky confused Apple computers with Apple Corp, who have had the Beatles on their books for years.
You may think I am a Nowhere Man, but I am the eggman - kook kook kajou. (I'm Getting Better)
what albums do you have? some tunes are decidedly nothing like take that. namely the really trippy ones :) and some great weird tunes on the white album.
i thought everyone went thru a beatles period? mine was when i was a stoner student. and now im just a stoner manager 18 years later :)
... althought the did do some brilliant stuff. I have just one vinyl Beatles album from the old days and whether they appear on iTunes or not, I couldn't give a toss. I loved Jonh Lennon's book 'Spaniard in the Works' and can, to this day, recite long passages from it from memory - 'Jesus El Pifco was a foreigner and he knew it...' - brilliant stuff. Their films were utter crap, except for Yellow Submarine, but that was down to the animation style. Somehow, I can't see youngsters buying Beatles records, even digitally. Will anyone really buy compilation CDs in this day and age?
I'm sorry why the hell would i pay nearly £400 for a CD box set of beatles re-releases most of which i probably already own?
Furthermore if i did have any desire to listen to said recordings i'd simply download them for free from any one of a dozen places online.
Guy Hands (of EMI mu$ic biz buyout fame) must be really struggling to pay the mortgage on that tax exile Guernsey house or something. Or maybe such a desperate sales ploy is a futile attempt to save that portfolio of dodgy debt leveraged investment buyout catastrophes which have all gone tits up?
1, Those fans who have all the records, bough them again on CD and now want a nice box set
2, Christmas is coming up - simple amazon one click and (Grand)Mum-Dad is taken care of.
3, People who never got round to buying all the individual albums, only know 2 songs, but with a box set at 50% off on amazon might be tempted.
A lot more people will buy a $100 box set than will buy 100 individual $1 itunes downloads, Apple (x2) know this.
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