You know what's kind of like online digital distribution, and yet not at all like that? Selling the entire re-mastered Beatles catalog
on a USB drive that slots into a fake apple. The fine folks at Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music have teamed up to build a limited edition run of 30,000 USB apples to be sold on December 7 in the UK and December 8 in freedom-loving America. Included on the 16GB drive are the 14 stereo titles in FLAC 44.1 Khz 24-bit, in addition to 320 Kbps MP3s and a whole digital stack of special materials like liner notes and mini-documentary films, all for the low, low price of $279.99. The drive is up for pre-order as of now, which means you could be a mere month away from plugging this drive into your computer, dragging the files into your iTunes library and then pretending that you bought them online in some sort of forward-looking content distribution model.
posted Nov 3rd 2009 10:32PM
ONLY $20 a song?! Absolute steal.
I do believe that is 14 albums, not 14 songs. Kind of given since they say "Selling the entire re-mastered Beatles catalog on a USB drive."
That's $20 an album, my friend. Not song.
Still expensive but not outrageous.
Basically you're paying $15 an album and $70 for the flash drive. That's not even a particularly bad price for a flash drive of that size, not great or even good, but certainly not ridiculous.
I can see this being worthwhile to some people.
In that case, it really is a steal imo.
I just bought a 16GB flash drive for 16GB. So yes, it is a bad price for that size.
However, for a flash drive in that design, a 30 dollar premium would be worth it for fans.
Nice, gigabytes are a currency now.
"Remastered", yet again. In other words, dynamically compressed to shit in order to make it sound "louder".
The destruction of our entire musical heritage continues...
Hopefully the 24 bit means its not compressed. Moving from 16 to 24 bit should give lots of headroom.
With my new flash drive, my salary is about 7.8MB/s.
[i meant 16GB for $40]
$70 would be a good price for 16gb drive a couple years ago. I guess it depends on the person whether the novelty is worth $40.
Still to expensive - make it available piecemeal, even at the same pricess, and I'll bite.
With all musicians, I'm not a fan of 100% of their catalog. Hell, I'm lucky to be a fan of 10% of their catalog. The Beatles doesn't escape this. I'm not interested in owning every single song they ever recorded and every little studio outtake that they can find in the back room of the studio...
It is already available digitally remastered at http://bluebeat.com
$0.25 per song or $4.00 for the whole album.
@Information Central
Are you talking file compression or audio compression there?
What the hell is this stupid crap. First transfomers on flash drives and now this stupid crap. Stupid companies doing stupid things annoys me.
It's only stupid if they don't make money off it. Judging by how much people love The Beatles, most likely this is going to sell out on day one.
Yeah you are right.... All companies should do the same thing, hay I know, they should all just give their stuff away for free on a torrent site?!
If the Beatles hadn't have been so creative you wouldn't have the music you no doubt love today. You'd be dancing across a room from any girl and listening to big band music.
So they are trying something new, its a little creative.. they may have come up with the idea whilst on drugs!! ooohhhh but hey, you never know till you try it.
Good for them, we need people to play around with ideas like this.
What's wrong with flash drives?
I just realized that the Beatles collection wasn't yet available on iTunes. I thought they had released it when they went to v9.0, but I guess not. This makes more sense now.
@feng:
I would have no problem with flash drives if there was a standardized format for the media and standardized case the flash drive came in. Anything that has been released on flash drives so far has all been a different style flash drive. For instance, this is coming in the shape of a giant green apple.
With CDs and DVDs/Blu Rays I can easily have a collection on a shelf of things I have. Am I supposed to have a drawer full of mixed flash drives?
@ Jordan:
Point taken. Did think about that myself.
Need a new storage solution then. For example, a case with many little cubicles to drop individual flash drives into. Could take a while to catch on, if and if, distribution by USB sticks catches on. Otherwise, the problem is fairly trivial, you can spare the drawer.
It would still be hard to store (especially if they're stored in irregularly shaped ones such as this). Not to mention the fact that it would be difficult to determine what music was contained as USB drives lack anything that could act like a CD's spine does.
If the special limited edition CD pack had come with this I'd have bought that... but US$279 is just too much for just a USB drive, especially as I plan on buying all of The Beatles: Rock Band DLC...
I'm a USB stick, and The Beatles was my idea.
Touché.
You have quite the idea repetoire. and everyone's stealing them. You need a better copyright and patent group
Well I've never been a Beatles fan...so I have no interest to buy this. But I guess we are never going to see the Beatles music on the Apple iTunes Store...seems clear they want their own profits instead of handing over some to Apple Inc. Can't say I blame them.
The only issue of course being that 100% of almost nothing is almost nothing, and 40% or 60% or what ever it is of a ton of money is still a ton of money...
With this going out to the masses as the first digital copies of Beatles music, I bet iTunes won't be far behind.
I will have this.
Anyone have a torrent link yet?
To a remastered catalog? definitely. Especially since my target had all of their remastered CDs the ast time I went...
torrents were up about a week before the 2009 remasters came out on CD.
Not particularly forward-looking for content distribution, but I'll take FLAC on USB over a CD.
Now, if only they'll do something about that pricetag. Otherwise, put all that 16Gb to really good use.
Gah, titles = albums, not tracks.
Go for it!
24-bit flac in addition to 320kbps mp3 will totally fill a 16GB flash drive.
*Beat me to it... cause of the price... will be available as a TORRENT download soon after... unbelieveable, record companies just don't learn... though I do like the apple...
Why didn't they include the Stereo AND the Mono remasters?
From what I've read, their early stuff just sounds bad/odd mixed in stereo, especially when the Beatles were in on the mono mixes and not the stereo mixes.
you'll prolly find this on amazon for about $200, i already own the Mono box and i was thinking of getting the cds in stereo so they read my mind.
Nevermind, pre-orders at the beatles store only. F@ck you EMI!
Nope, lowest price for the Beatles USB limited edition thingy is almost $240 on Amazon. That's still very steep for a 16GB drive I think but considering you get a bunch of documentaries and some other art with it too and a cool aluminum green apple I guess its not so bad. Good thing the USB is in the cap and not in the apple. That would've been terrible if you want to listen to it in the car. "Hey what is that air freshener doing in front of your car radio?" "Uh, no, thats The Beatles on USB hehe" http://www.limited-editions.info/music/beatles-usb-limited-edition-apple-collection/ Then again, I've seen people pay much more money for much lesser items.
this is stupid
I agree.
mostly because i couldn't give a shit about the Beatles.
I'll just use this blank space here to post.
Why couldn't they use a lossless codec?
Sorry, only scanned the part where it mentioned mp3.
Fuck I was expecting a "crapgadget" tag or something similar-like
I can't imagine John Lennon being super stoked about this waste of plastic.
Screw Lennon; he was the weak sauce in that band.
Ringo says hi...
I haven't heard John Lennon voice any opposition to it.
Man, I love the Beatles, but with this price tag, I'd pass.