MP3 Shocker! Apple Records makes Billy Preston and James Taylor available for download, the Beatles not so much
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted July 6th 2010 10:48PM
posted July 6th 2010 10:48PM
EMI and Apple Records have announced that a number of artists from the back catalog (and it's all back catalog at this point), including James Taylor, Badfinger, Mary Hopkins, and Billy Preston (pictured above, shooting time traveling lightning bolts from his fingers) will see their work remastered and re-released on CD and digital download on October 26. Authorized downloads are a first for the company, although the plans do exclude the one group that really matters. How about the four lads from Liverpool, then? Looks like for the time being you're either stuck with pre-loaded novelty USB drives or you're ripping all your legally purchased CDs (for personal archival use only). Billy Preston shows us how it's done after the break.
There is a word for this - Stupid
Or to use more words - What is the point?
@PhaseDMA
beatles and ac/dc. Come on iTunes I thought you were the best (legal) music store?
@PhaseDMA
I know, McCartney has said before that he wants the Beatles catalog available in digital downloads, but seems like the First Apple (BEATLES company) made an agreement with the second Apple (Computer company) that the later would never enter the music industry, but tell that to iTunes.
Now I dont understand if they are starting to sell digital downloads for other Apple artists, what happened with The Beatles? Someday they will understand that physical music distribution (CD, Vinyl, Cassettes, etc) is not the most lucrative way in the present.
I love The Beatles (I am 30 and fan since 11) . Abbey Road a masterful art work.
Badfinger, what a GREAT BAND also (to me Beatles II) and Queen (Beatles III).
Badfinger video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C53QAuOoSgc
@PhaseDMA
I saw "MP3" followed by "Apple" and thought the world was coming to an end.
WTF
That was a weird ass video!!! Was that a music video or a movie clip? What was up with all the lasers and flying around? Lmao. Oh man gotta luv the Internet, I would have never seen this other wise. Lol
@EL MAESTRO
That was the ill fated "sgt Pepper's" movie, based on Beatles music with all the hot music stars. It faded deservedly into obscurity only to be brought back by the internet.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078239/usercomments
Oh you youngins, that is from a movie called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from way back in a strange time called 1978.
Wow, I'm old.
This just drives people to download it by thee means. It's stupid not to let people spend money on a song/album no matter what formats it is in
@DefPoet Exactly. The tracks are already digitized and can easily be converted. What's the problem with making them available for purchase?
The only special case I can see is stuff like Pink Floyd albums. Here it makes sense to only sell the complete album because the band has deliberately designed them to form a whole experience and explicitly wants them to not be taken out of context.
Oh, and those old dudes with the long hair, that was the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Yeah yeah, your saying, who the hell are the bee gees go look it up on Wikipedia, I need a drink.
So old, now, so old ..... cough... cough...
@ttringle
Lucky you, I am 30 and if I had a time machine I would go back to the 60s and stay there.
Groovy times
I don't get this. I downloaded a Billy Preston song from the Zune Marketplace over a month ago.
@pcwzrd13 This would be the Billy Preston stuff released under Apple Records I assume. Pretty sure the rest of it is available elsewhere (there's a Billy Preston Ultimate Collection on iTunes as well that has most of his hits).
Hey you know what, DefPoet, if you want Beatles go out and buy the damned CD's. I can see downloading hard to get stuff. But you can't use that excuse with one of the most popular bands on earth. No matter where you live in america (at least) there is a Best Buy or a Walmart. So if you want it you can at least buy those. Those guys rocked hard for nearly 3 decades together and they deserve it.
@ttringle
Why by cds for someone than have them rip it to Thor computer just to put in their mp3 player. I don't care how old they are they don't control their music. It's the idiots at EMI that needs gets with the times not us. Cd are on their way out
@ttringle
First of all, will Walmart have the CD you need? Second, you have to drive all the way there, hope they have it, buy it, get it home, spend the time ripping the songs to your computer and then never touch the CD? Also, it's pretty much bad for the environment and wasteful.
EMI needs to pull their head out of their ... and see the times. I don't give a shit. The Beatles are ancient, and the band no longer exists. Most of them are dead. No disrespect, but you really think the Beatles wouldn't want their music to be available on the Nr. 1 music retailer in the country? I think they'd want people to pay money and listen and enjoy their music. And EMI is preventing that....
Sorry for ranting, but when companies prevent people from spending money on music and buying it legally, it pisses me off...
I don't get why the Beetles on iTunes are such a big deal. Just go buy the CDs and then rip them to iTunes. Problem solved, no? It'd probably be cheaper, too.
@EL -- Slug Bug. Smack. (It's "Beatles" with an "a")
@EL
Why not just let online music stores have then. And by pass the ripping part
@Bosco Errrr. Um, yeah. Time for bed, I guess. Thanks for the correction.
Lightsaber > Finger Laser-teleporter thing
@Lord Vader
Superman laser eyes > greater than both
@DefPoet
Little children > all
You won't be seeing The Beatles catalog on itunes anytime in the near future. Plus I find it hard to believe anyone would expect it. Google it and surprise yourself...
If they don't release Beatle's music into the iTunes store, then they REALLY don't know how much money they are missing.
Limewire Pro FTW!!!!!!!!!!
Uhhh why did I go to itunes and search beetles and see that their CDs were available for preorder then? Maybe its just itunes on my iPod touch...
@Shakeandblake maybe because you're spelling it wrong ;) The Beatles. and it's cover bands' albums that are available for pre-order
@thebergs2010 Lol yeah I cant type on my iPod :P thanks for clearing that up though :D
I'm sure they'll release the Beatles for digital download just as soon as everyone on the planet already downloaded it illegally.
Let me Enlighten you on who's at fault... Sony/ATV Music Publication.
The Beatles songs were NEVER EVER EVER controlled by EMI or Apple Ltd.
Initially the Beatles owned their own music, Brian Epstein peddled it to different publishers until he found EMI, when the albums sold they were taking in the lions share of the profits and ended up paying nearly 95% in taxes, the inspiration for the song Tax Man. In 1963 the Beatles along with Brian Epstein and Dick James formed Northern Songs Ltd as a publishing holding for the Beatles music to protect more their money because the publishing money was no longer going directly into their pockets, this ended up housing only Lennon/McCartney songs because when the initial publishing contract expired Harrison and Starkey both went their own way taking their publishing rights, after which Norther Songs went onto the open stock exchange with James and co-administrator Emmanuel Charles Silver holding 37.5% of the company. Jump ahead to '69, after James' cooling relations between Lennon/McCartney, James and Silver sold off their stock to ATV holdings, and after years of unsuccessful attempts of acquiring the stock in Norther Songs both Lennon and McCartney chose to sell their stock and thus publishing rights (a total of 30%) to ATV. Jump to '85 ATV Music is put up for sale, and Jackson acquires it by out bidding McCartney. Ten years later Jackson merges ATV catalog (which includes the Beatles music) with his then publisher's, Sony, primary catalog of music forming Sony/ATV Music Publication while holding onto 50% of the control right. Currently Sony is in full control over ATV's catalog with approval from the executor of Micheal Jackson estate until it is determined who will gain control over Jackson's half of the publication company.
Why is this important. That's very simple. Sony/ATV has say in how the catalog of most all the Beatles songs can be published, EMI/Capitol has say in how the recordings can be published, they own the publishing rights to the recordings, but not the songs. A new format/release requires approval by Sony/ATV and in some cases other song holders including Paul McCartney, so far Sony/ATV has been firm about not allowing their Beatles holdings to be published for digital downloads, probably holding out in an attempt to milk the cow for all its worth before the publishing contracts for these songs expire and revert back to the original owners... Lennon/McCartney.
I will make it simple for you. This is why you will not be seeing The Beatles on itunes anytime soon. http://lowendmac.com/orchard/07/0110.html
@madcapjim
This has nothing to do with release, its all business and has been settled, EMI/Apple has nothing to lose from releasing the music through iTunes, or any other digital company for that matter, and other downloadable media since EMI sold all Apple Corp. name and logo licencing to Apple a few years ago, under the new agreement the licencing for Apple Corp. in name and logo is paid to Apple Inc., formally Apple Computers. Business goes beyond lawsuits, money is money, and for a company like EMI, who is in financial hurting, they could use the money.
The Beatles on iTunes would be a complicated agreement between 3 parties, which generally never works out because one party feels their demands aren't being met and by meeting that party's demands another party is unhappy. Sony/ATV hold the rights to publication of pretty much all the Beatles music, EMI owns all the original recordings, they've never owned the publishing rights, and Apple controls the digital distribution for iTunes, Microsoft for Zune, etc. With this agreement between EMI and the digital distributors it makes it sound like the people being pricks here are Sony/ATV.
@3dpenguin
With all due respect, I doubt very much you were old enough at the time to remember what all this is about. This isn't about money, if it was it would have been a done deal long ago. Do you know how much Beatles product is still officially unreleased? I have enough in my collection to tell me there's plenty more, and if money was an issue it would be going out year after year. The movie "Let it Be" is still long out of print, another source of income no one cares about. On paper its settled, but bad feelings don't go away because people sign a piece of paper. The day Apple Computer became Apple Computer, the other Apple in this barrel didn't like it. The bad feelings remain, and I expect that will continue to be the case.
@madcapjim
And if you would have read the artical it states nothing about iTunes.
With all due respect I suspect you're too old to understand the availability options of digital downloads. iTunes is exclusively Apple, but this barring from digital downloads is on Zune (Microsoft), Napster, Amazon, and many others. It comes down to back biting by EMI/Apple and Sony/ATV, if it was just EMI/Apple vs Apple Inc. no Apple Records music would be available on iTunes but likely would be available through other outlets, which its not. If you look at specific songs controlled by Sony/ATV you will find covers of them available on iTunes, but the originals aren't available, this probably is because EMI and Sony/ATV have different opinions on how much their share of the profits should be, your digital download services have a fixed percentage and up front fees, the fact is EMI/Apple doesn't own the rights to distribute the Beatles music, and never have, they just own the original recordings, which are distributed at the will of Sony/ATV. If you look up Paul McCartney you'll find live albums which contain Beatles music, since they are live and are not under EMI/Apple's umbrella only Sony/ATV. So if you take into consideration these new digital distributions EMI has no problems with the distribution format, and the availability of cover versions of the Beatles songs Sony/ATV has no problems either, so it must be something between Sony/ATV and EMI/Apple, the only two players who have negotiable financial compensation.
Also, McCartney has openly been vocal about the amounts he has to pay to Sony/ATV when he performs, records, or distribute songs that he wrote under Lennon/McCartney, sometimes he would blame Jackson but other times he would generally blame the fact that somebody else controls the publishing/distribution rights to the songs he wrote under the Norther Songs contract.
@3dpenguin
As I said, this isn't about money. You say as much in your post. Yes, I am older than you, older than most who post here. Age has few benefits, but in this case it does. The Beatles are different. They always were. The way they make decisions about their catalog is completely at odds with how it is done by every other major artist from that period of time. You can point fingers at any of the parties involved but it still comes down to the inability of these people to come to agreement on just about any issue. Its always been like this, and I see no reason its going to change anytime soon.
Oh, and to your statement of me being to old to understand all this, I should inform you my income comes from royalties, and I have a connection to one of the parties.
@madcapjim
And you bringing my age into it doesn't hold much water either, the entire history with the Beatles music catalog, and Apple Ltd. vs Apple Computers is very public knowledge because both have been played out in a public forum. The facts are this has little to do with the Apple feud and more with EMI/Apple and Sony/ATV, they are the ones who in the end decide what gets published from the Beatles and what doesn't, its not some great conspiracy by EMI/Apple to punish Apple Inc. for settled and paid disagreements.
It's that damn holdout, John Lennon who is behind this!
Worst, most heartbreaking movie ever.
@stridermt2k
Tell me about it the original version had such bad acting in it that they chopped out most of the dialog, when I say most I mean pretty much all of the dialog and had George Burns record a narration of the entire movie.
If you don't already have these albums in three different formats then I guess it's what you have to deal with.
Old School.
Meh, music downloads from the Internet is old news anyway. The future of music is giving away your CD free with a newspaper. Just ask Prince.
@ChrisSsk LOL. I wonder will he pull all of his stuff from iTunes?