The record label EMI is suing a little-known online music site called BlueBeat.com for selling Beatles songs without permission.
The Beatles catalog, including dozens of the top pop songs ever recorded, has famously never been licensed for sale as digital downloads.
After buying the remastered version of Abbey Road from the site last Friday, we asked EMI and the Beatles' label Apple Corp. whether BlueBeat, located in Santa Cruz, California, had cleared the necessary rights in order to sell the digital songs, which are not available for sale on Amazon MP3, iTunes or elsewhere. Bluebeat is selling the songs for 25 cents per track plus a 30 cent processing fee, representing a big discount from what the songs would cost on those other services – were they available.
The label filed a lawsuit (.pdf) in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Tuesday against BlueBeat Inc., BaseBeat Inc., Media Rights Technologies, which owns the other two companies, and its head Hank Risan. The complaint, which is not yet available through the court website, accuses the defendant of "copyright infringement and misappropriation of pre-1972 sound recordings."
For now, the albums are still listed for sale on the site, and the free streams still play once you register for an account.
BlueBeat has not responded to requests for comment.
11/4 Update: The entire catalog of stereo Beatles albums will soon be legitimately available in digital, albeit physical, form. Apple Corp. and EMI announced the pre-order availability of 30,000 16-GB Apple-shaped USB drives containing 14 albums in lossless 24-bit FLAC (better than CD quality) and 320 Kbps MP3 formats, 13 short documentary films about the albums, album art, "rare photos" and expanded liner notes, all accessible directly or through a Flash player that automatically loads on Macs and PCs.
It's quite a statement – especially the 24-bit depth of the lossless files, which allows more gradations between volume levels than standard 16-bit (CD-quality) audio files. The only catch – they cost $280. EMI and Apple Corp. plan to release the drives on Dec. 8.
11/4 Update, 8:30 pm ET: Read EMI's 35-page complaint against BlueBeat. (.pdf)
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