For the last 9 years, iTunes has been the main source of music distribution. It has boasted that it is the music store that has the most music readily available for download. But one of the few artists that Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, has never been able to get his hands on, happens to be the all-time top selling artist.
This would be The Beatles. Jobs and The Beatles (mostly Paul McCartney and the son of George Harrison, Dhani) have never been able to come up with a deal that both parties agree on.
Dhani Harrison made it clear that the disagreement was due to the fact that Apple promises that a song will never be more than $0.99 and they feel that the Beatles legacy should not be treated like any other band. I couldn't agree more. The contract was in a stalemate.
Each day that iTunes went without The Beatles music catalogue, possible income was being thrown away by both Apple and The Beatles. After realizing this, it finally happened.
On Monday, apple.com could hardly wait to release the good news and their homepage displayed the phrase "Tomorrow is just another day that you will never forget." Then yesterday at 7:00am PST, The Beatles picture was displayed on the home page and the banner read "The Beatles. Now on iTunes."
Is it just a coincidence that just six months after Apple announced the price for popular music tracks on iTunes would be raised from $0.99 to $1.29, that The Beatles and Jobs finally came to an agreement?
Who cares? What matters now is that the most popular artist of all-time is for sale on the biggest online music distribution store.
The whole Beatles catalogue is now available on iTunes.
And yes, each song is $1.29, but money well spent if you ask me.
who actually owns the rights to the music now? I know MJ owned a lot of it and really screwed Paul over. That's why you see The Beatles songs in ads for Nike and Target. The Beatles are timeless.... and it is great that they are now officially on Itunes :)
ReplyDeleteNow that Michael Jackson has passed, the rights are lost somewhere in his estate. If I were to guess anyone I would say Sony Records. This is the company that MJ originally bought in order to gain the rights.
ReplyDeleteHowever, owning the rights to songs just gives you access to commercial use. For ex, Video Games, Ringtones, Advertisements, etc.
As for the actual recordings of the songs, they are owned 50/50 by the writer and the original record company. In this case, Apple Corps. which is just owned by The Beatles anyways. So they have control over who has access to distribute the music. For ex, iTunes.