The Beatles finally land on iTunes

17 November 2010

by Eamonn Forde

Proving that if something is said enough times it will finally come true, The Beatles’ music is now available for download on iTunes.

It was the rumour that refused to go away ever since the debut of iTunes in 2003, arising every single time Apple planned a major announcement. But, at last, they are here.

The band’s studio albums retail for $20.99, while double albums sell for $35.99 each and the full box set has a hefty $259 price tag. Most surprising is the fact that individual tracks can be purchased (costing $2.19 each). This issue of unbundling was long suspected to be a major sticking point behind negotiations, with leaked information suggesting Apple Corp wanted albums to be sold as complete bodies of work (going against Apple’s à la carte model on iTunes).

Short ‘making of’ video documentaries (which came as extra DVDs with the remastered CD boxsets last year) can also be downloaded, but only as part of a complete album (or box set) purchase. Which goes some way to appeasing Apple Corp’s concerns about unbundling.

At the moment, iTunes has the exclusive on the band’s catalogue. None of the rival services have the tracks and there is still no confirmation from EMI as to when they will be licensed the music to other stores.

Steve Jobs, such a Beatles fan he named his company after Apple Corp and had several trademark battles over the name, had long stated he wanted to be the first to secure the band’s catalogue digitally. He even dusted down a special “it has been a long and winding road to get here” quote to mark the occasion, hinting at the protracted licensing talks behind the deal.

The timing of the announcement was made extremely interesting given the fact that EMI’s new owners Terra Firma recently lost their court battle with Citigroup (over the purchase of the music company) and Universal began its Wings reissue campaign, having poached Paul McCartney’s back catalogue from EMI earlier this year.

Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan was coolly unimpressed with it all, blogging after the announcement, “Thank goodness that is out of the way, now we can focus on important developments.”

He argued it was an announcement too fixated on the past when the future of digital music should have been the focus (with iTunes in the cloud still some way off).

“The digital music market (and the young music fans record labels desperately need to get engaged) need new music products, not yesteryear’s hits repackaged,” he said. “So congratulations, Steve, on finally getting your Beatles catalogue. Now can you please turn your attention to innovating your digital music services?”