Steve Jobs presenting in London at EMI event, Beatles rumors flow again

Looks like El Jobso is coming out of his busy, busy office in Cupertino to, of all things, present "exciting new digital offering" at an EMI media event in London. Now, EMI is, as many know, where much of The Beatles catalogue resides, and none of that music has ever been made available online; we've long heard rumors of Apple getting the digital exclusive -- especially since Apple Corps and Apple, Inc. have settled their differences -- so to you, dear reader, we submit this: wouldn't any kind of real Beatles fan already have all the cuts on vinyl or CD -- or at least have downloaded or copied all they need? And hell, anyone who doesn't already have this stuff can always go pick it up relatively cheaply at any local record store and rip it -- at least then you won't have to deal with the DRM. In other words: we're still not sure why we should care about the world's most ubiquitous rock band selling music on the world's most ubiquitous digital download service in an all out DRM-love-in.

[Thanks, Josh]

[Curtis @ Apr 1st 2007 2:29PM]

Me thinks that this is the beginning of a busy month for Apple :)

[3rdsun @ Apr 1st 2007 2:33PM]

Is today Steve Jobs' birthday

[Mike @ Apr 1st 2007 2:34PM]

It is a digital milestone, one of the last stands of physical distribution, folding to the digital.

[Chris Moroz @ Apr 1st 2007 2:34PM]

The same reason any business does anything... there's money to be made in it.

[douglas j duncan @ Apr 1st 2007 2:35PM]

i read something about it being drmless... which would be an interesting experiment and would be a good way for jobs to show the industry in an 'I told you so' kind of way. also, i wouldn't be surprised if apple put out a beatles edition of the ipod (much like the U2 edition.) i mean, the beatles are bigger than U2, right? and that thing has been selling for years!

[semoog @ Apr 1st 2007 2:43PM]

If I'm not mistaken these should be newly remastered versions, so to the fans its a big deal.

[Eduardo @ Apr 1st 2007 2:43PM]

Unless the real news is DRM-FREE music… think about it… EMI

[Jason Brennan @ Apr 1st 2007 2:44PM]

All I care about are the REMASTERS. If you buy a Beatles album on compact disc right now, you get quite a shoddy product. If I am going to buy these albums, I want a nice package (in general)!

[Ein @ Apr 1st 2007 2:45PM]

Not Jobs, but Apple's birthday.

[Anonymous @ Apr 1st 2007 2:49PM]

Any real fan would abhor "Remastered" editions, so hopefully that isn't the case. If they were to put up some of the rarer classics, then maybe I'd be willing to purchase them digitally. But 99% of the Beatles stuff can be had legally (I guess, who knows anymore) from YouTube.

Give me their catalog in a lossless codec and I'd be quick to jump on it. Give it to me in a lossy, drm'd format and screw you.

[Zeke @ Apr 1st 2007 5:22PM]

@Anomymous Coward

"Any real fan would abhor "Remastered" editions"

...I assume that means you're still listening to the Vinyl, then?
They remastered the CDs in 1987-88 when the technology was brand new and people didn't really know how to treat the new technology. With a couple of albums, Martin even elected to put the mono mix on the CD (like on "A Hard Day's Night) while the stereo mix had some real gems to it.

"Remastered" doesn't mean "rehashed". If you didn't like "LOVE" or some of the controversial changes to "Yellow Submarine", that doesn't mean that you'll necessarily hate a digital remaster of the Beatles collection.

Point in case: on "LOVE," forget all of the mashup stuff, and listen to Ringo's cymbals, the strings on "Eleanor Rigby", or the Wulritzer keyboard on "I Am The Walrus". That album, more than anything, made me want to hear the ORIGINAL albums updated to high quality audio.

[Mr Twain @ Apr 1st 2007 2:59PM]

"dear reader, we submit this: wouldn't any kind of real Beatles fan already have all the cuts on vinyl or CD -- or at least have downloaded or copied all they need?"

Firstly... wouldn't that luddite argument apply to every single "legacy" artist on iTunes if it were viable? Secondly, the whole point of the (allegedly) impending announcement is that the material will be legitimately available for download for the first time.

[Steve @ Apr 1st 2007 3:29PM]

yeah, cheers to mr. twain.... if "anyone can go pick it up relatively cheap at the local record store," then why have the itunes store at all? oh yeah, because the whole point of it is to provide an easier way for people to buy and enjoy music, no matter how "ubiquitous" it is. so engadget, if you really don't care about this, then why does it get posted?

[Darren @ Apr 1st 2007 3:09PM]

It will probably be movie or T.V. show downloads for Europe going by the iTunes update

[Fraser Drew @ Apr 1st 2007 3:34PM]

I would be willing to put money on it NOT being TV/Movies... Why would it be with EMI? In the UK it would either be with a Film Studio, on their own, or with someone like the BBC

[hashkey @ Apr 1st 2007 3:11PM]

Mr Twain's got a point. And people said much the same thing when they released '1' in 2000- "doesn't everybody have all these tracks?" Nearly 30 million copies later.. (the best selling album this decade to date)

[J @ Apr 1st 2007 3:26PM]

The reason it's important is because it's an exclusive. Granted, it's not all that important -- but it would be fed through the Apple hype machine and people would be talking about it.

I'm more interested seeing Apple carry Led Zeppelin. Granted, of course I already have the box set on my iPod, but I'm sure it's important to some people that Apple has "all" of the worlds music.

[Ryan Block @ Apr 1st 2007 6:24PM]

My point is the Beatles have been around for decades -- I don't think it's some watershed moment for the music industry that they'd finally get digitally distributed. That said, I posted about it because I know we have a lot of readers who'd want to know about this. Do you really want to read the Engadget where we only indulge our own personal interests? Because if you did, I'd probably only write about robots and laptops most days. :)

[Alex @ Apr 1st 2007 3:56PM]

Let me be the first to call April Fool on this one.

Who sends out media invites on a Sunday for an event the next day for something as big as this?

[Curtis @ Apr 1st 2007 4:28PM]

It is not a joke. Engadget said so in the freaking article. Plus other sites like Macrumors and CNet also said so. They were rightfully suspicious and checked. I'm not a Beatles fan but the "idea" that DRM-less and Apple Lossless songs from iTunes is only a good thing. I have no problems with iTunes DRM as I have purchased over 200 songs from iTunes. But DRM-less is much better for us consumers.

[Joe @ Apr 2nd 2007 1:28AM]

Thank you! At least there's one endgagetron with a socially-adept head on his head.

[Lee Roy Brandon III @ Apr 1st 2007 5:46PM]

I'll submit this: I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality of "Love", precisely because it was released in a high-quality format: 5.1 Surround DVD-Audio. I'm not sure if anything on iTunes comes remotely close to that caliber of engineering. I get a kick out of the rush to "high-def" television while there is a simultaneous rush to such low-quality lossy codecs in music, just becausse it is "convenient". (snickers while listening to an SACD copy of "Dark Side of the Moon")

[Steve @ Apr 1st 2007 6:02PM]

you know what's worse than apple/microsoft fanboy flameouts? audio snobs who think their listening preferences are the only valid way to listen to music.

[Steve @ Apr 1st 2007 6:42PM]

yes, but in so playing down the significance of this (and i agree, it's not that big a deal), your logic basically says, "since everyone should already have all the music they want from legacy real world formats (which are better: no DRM), why should anyone buy anything off itunes?" i point out simply that itunes serves a different purpose than record shops down the street.

[Kelemor @ Apr 1st 2007 6:47PM]

What if apple was going to buy EMI?

where they not try to get bought by someone?

[tundraboy @ Apr 1st 2007 7:30PM]

Since we're all in a wildly speculative state of mind, I predict a special Beatles iPod with the complete Beatles oevre preloaded and lossless no less!

Otherwise just the Beatles on iTunes would offer nothing compelling for all the reasons given by earlier posters.

[Joe @ Apr 2nd 2007 1:28AM]

Um, hello? It's obviously Apple's attempt at an April Fools gag, folks. so much for mac users being smarter than...

[dfgdfgdfgdfg @ Apr 2nd 2007 2:50AM]

Some insignificant company (Apple) releases some CDs. Why the heck do you post such irrelevant "news", Engadget?

[kevin @ Apr 2nd 2007 4:13AM]

i don't know what record stores you've been to, but all of the ones i've been to sell beatles records for relatively high prices. whether it's an old mint record or a new cd, they're usually at least 10% more expensive than other albums.

[mrsalty @ Apr 2nd 2007 11:57PM]

No, I think it's real it's also been posted here.

h
http://news.com.com/2061-10799_3-6172341.html?tag=nefd.top

http://iphoneblogger.blogspot.com/2007/04/blog-post.html

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/04/01/steve-jobs-and-emi-press-conference-no-more-drm/