The long and winding road to DRM-free downloads from a major record label led this week to the door of The Beatles' label, EMI.
To the disappointment of many, the deal between Apple and EMI announced yesterday won't include the long-awaited release of the Fab Four's catalog on the iTunes Music Store.
EMI says discussions are ongoing with Beatles publisher Apple Corps to secure the online rights from the world's biggest digital holdout. Those talks are unrelated to the wider issue of selling tracks without anti-copying technology known as digital rights management, or DRM.
Under the current arrangement between EMI and Apple Corps, both parties must agree to move Beatles recordings to each new format. The Beatles catalog is already available on CD, but digital downloads are a different matter. So far, the British group's publisher has held back.
When asked when the Beatles tunes will be available for download, EMI spokesperson Jeanne Meyer expressed her hopes that an agreement would be forthcoming.
"We hope very soon," she said.
Rumors of an iTunes-Beatles exclusive have riveted the digital music world since February, following the successful resolution of a long-standing trademark dispute between iTunes Music Store owner Apple (formerly Apple Computer) and Apple Corps.
The exclusion of the Beatles' catalog has left a glaring hole in the musical offerings on iTunes, by far the world's biggest online music store with over 2 billion downloads to date. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made no secret of his love for the group, which has featured prominently in product announcements for iTunes and its iPod portable digital music player.
The Beatles franchise has seen no reason to rush. In fact, the group has been slow to adopt other digital formats in the past. The Beatles' music wasn't available on CD until 1987, several years after the format reached the market.
Since then, EMI has successfully repackaged the band's music in CD remasters and remixes that have shot to the top of the sales charts.
But, with CD sales plummeting and new offerings from iTunes including incentives for consumers to purchase complete albums rather than singles, rumors of an imminent deal persist -- and will likely only grow with the prospects of DRM-free versions of the group's hits on the newly announced iTunes store.
"Will they sell more if they wait? Yes, because the announcement will make a big splash," says music industry analyst Bob Lefsetz.
"Just like the Rolling Stones wait an hour to go on after they should, (The Beatles) are creating a pent-up mania that will generate a surge in sales when the announcement finally comes."
"Hopefully for them, that will drive a percentage of people who already own the music on CD to go out and buy it again."
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Laura Moorhead also contributed to this report.
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