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It may be too late. I've collected 5 or 6 of their CDs while waiting for EMI to do something.

Hot damn! 'Can't wait to download the Beatles catalog to my brown Zune!

Beatles are coming out with digital downloads at the official Zune launch

Given the flop of all newcomers to the market, its only Apple that can make downloading of Beatles tracks financially attractive. Given the crap Apple has had to suffer from Apple Corps over the last 20+ years, I hope SJ either drives a hard bargin or tells them to get stuffed !!

Ka-Ching!…

Just wait for it: $100 million payment by Microsoft for exclusive rights to the Beatles catalog for 6 months. $250 million for a year.

Zune "join the social" lead commercial featuring "Come Together."

Gregg T,

I grew up during the Beatles era. I've got 202 Beatles songs on my iPod already; and I haven't ripped every Beatles CD I own. I don't know if a reason exists to buy more! I doubt digital is better than CD quality.

Microsoft will continue to "pay off" everyone to try to steal business away from Apple. Microsoft doesnt care if they become the leader in digital music, they just want to hurt/kill apple.

hence why they are willing to lose money on the Zune itself, and why they are Probably paying off Apple Corps for the Beatles exclusive content.

"Just wait for it: $100 million payment by Microsoft for exclusive rights to the Beatles catalog for 6 months. $250 million for a year."

AND $1 from each Zune sold to pay for all the "thieves" that use such devices. CD rippin' pirates, all.

CDs ARE digital. I think you mean digitally re-mastered. This is a separate issue to downloading vs CD.

I have new original CDs and new digitally re-mastered CD versions of the same original analog album (Pink Floyd) and the difference is enormous - digitally re-mastered sounds MUCH better.

Yea, yea yea!!!

Too little, too late.

The beatles suck

Cynic821.

You may not like them but they are probably the most influential recording artists of all time.

Saying that the Beatles "suck" is cynical to the point of silliness, but I do think that what's left of the band missed their window for digital sales by a few years.

The vast majority of Beatle fans who really want digital copies of their songs surely have them by now. If not, there are a lot easier ways to get them than by accumulating M$ points...

And thats your opinion JEG. They influenced more garbage that sucked.

The Beatles music will probably be available exclusively for the Zune out of spite against Apple selling music.

Visit this http://www.zune-player.net/content/view/17/9/ web site and vote against zune. Choose “Not in a Million Years.”

Vote here too: http://zune-central.com/

Also visit this http://clubzune.net/poll site and vote for iPod, and fu*k these zune lovers.

Cynic821, you need to RUN, not WALK, to the nearest psychoanalyst to find out why you recurrently default to the verb "suck" when criticizing your betters. Hmmmmm . . .

NOTE: Unless your real name is Bruce Springsteen, Carole King, Brian Wilson, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, or J.S. Bach, keep your vulgar (and, frankly, REVEALING) comments to yourself!

Hell froze over quite often in the last years...

Somewhat tardy of The Beatles I'd say... still, maybe better late than never...

brown bricks are only available in the US

Have any of you considered actually putting your hands on one of these devices and seeing what it's like? You can't hate it just for the color...

a) If you're a Beatles fan, you've almost certainly bought all of their CDs with no need to buy a digital one
b) If you're not a fan, then you wouldn't buy their songs anyway.

I will concede that being able to say "We've got the Beatles, you don't ha ha!" is a great thing for any company to say. Let's hope it's Apple.

Yea, too bad its so late. They should have got into the game earlier, and set apart their business of selling Beatles albums from their business of suing Apple Computer. They could have been selling digital downloads on iTunes all this time and still have a lawsuit going on in the "background". just my 2c

(I also wonder why Jethro Tull is holding out - does anyone know why they are not on iTunes?)

Zune is more popular than Jesus.

Bill --Done

Let's vote everybody!

It should be noted that Microsoft IS NOT LOSING MONEY ON EVERY ZUNE SOLD. Balmer said that the $299 pricepoint "would've been better," but Apple has the benefit of volume and that they had to be competitive...

The Beatles most certainly do not suck, but their management team (living members included) have to come to grips with the fact that WE ALREADY OWN THEIR MUSIC.

Artists only get so much free money for having their material transposed on a few different formats...

LP... Cassette... CD... Digital

They can't expect us to buy their entire catalogue 4 times, can they?

Furthermore, they've sat on the digital thing for so long, most of use already have ripped those CDs or *gasp* downloaded those songs long ago... remember, Napster came out around 2000. AKA a LOOOOOONG time ago.

As a result, my point is this: The Beatles are not as big a draw as any possible Zune launch would lead you to believe. There are millions of people who *clearly* don't get the downloading thing, but hey, they're more likely to just rip their own CD's than take a chance with the Zune Marketplace... right?

The Beatles were the real deal. They still kick butt. But I've got their music. Already. So do my parents. In numerous formats.

EMI, release the damn music already will ya?

Actually, Cynic, it's not JEG's opinion that they're the most influential recording artists of all time... it's the fact that they ARE. like it or not, the most influential recording artists of all time.

However, it is your opinion that the people they inluenced produced garbage, and no doubt the odds are extremely high that your favorite band are most likely influenced by The Beatles. So I suggest, just to be safe, that you delete all of your music... We know how uncool it would be for you to, God forbid, have to listen to any music influenced by The Beatles.

Eh, what am I doing,... arguing with a 14 year old. I'm sorry Cynic, I guess that you'll just have to wait a few more years to understand what's going on in the world. Nevermind.

Not true, I've seen them available on limewire for many years.

The Beatles most certainly do not suck, but their management team (living members included) have to come to grips with the fact that WE ALREADY OWN THEIR MUSIC.

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Sorry, but your statement couldn't be further from the truth.. The Beatles continue to sell more than 2 million albums per year. That's more than 95% of current artists sell...

Beatles Sales Data.

Between the years 1991-2006 The Beatles have sold nearly 51 MILLION ALBUMS. They hold the #2 position for the "Top 100 selling artists/bands in the SoundScan Era."

http://www.ukmix.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22680&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=b7cc67e9f21a03bfd3a0809c6f787017

Correction on my post above, Beatles continue to sell more than 3 million albums per year (not 2 million.)

The Beatles are sounding a little stale. What they need is a release of dance remixes with modern phat beats.

Like Geoff I too have already replaced my well worn Beatle albums via CD's.

They waited too long....BUT, I would love a Beatles iPod, like they did with U2 (which I didn't buy). That I would pull out the credit card for. They need to do something really special and unusual with it as both the Beatles and Apple were/are best at innovation.

The Beatles will come into the MP3 game 2 years to late to hit their best sales off it. However, if the iPod came with EVERY song, including some unheard of tunes dug up from somewhere already in it, THAT would be be worth the price. They could put out-takes or bootleg recordings or something to make it worthwhile for those of us who already have everything Beatle recorded or written. George Martin must have some gems somewhere.

The Beatles are the most important band for any music service to have, PERIOD.

The Beatles sell 3 million albums or roughly 30 million songs per year. That's more songs than iTunes sells in two weeks with a 3.5 million song catalog and tens of thousands of artists. (iTunes sells roughly 2 million songs per day.)

Who are the Beatles?

Where's the news about K-Fed being available online? Nobody cares about some oldies act when the future is now, and it's called K-Fed.

[extreme sarcasm]
I hope they hurry! iTunes and digital music can't survive without this must-have act!
[/extreme sarcasm]

Apple Records will be selling the songs itself (gotta love those musicians' egos). Why else all the recent tangles with AAPL and iTunes?

Expect $9.99 per song, and some hoop-jumping DRM BS.

And expect it to go down in flames rather quickly too...

"Beatles continue to sell more than 3 million albums per year..."

Keep in mind, however, that no less than eleven albums (I think it's eleven) were released since 1990, both remasters of the old familiar tunes and first-release session work. For vinyl and CD collectors, these were must-haves. There is surely very little left of the unreleased recordings, and future anthologies will be able to do little that has not been done before.

For digital collectors, the dynamics are different, I think. Even though digital music should long ago have surpassed CD's and vinyl in the areas of liner notes and pictures, it hasn't... so one copy of 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is the same as the next. Why buy the same recording again if you can playlist The Beatles any way you want?

It will take more than long-released Beatles tracks to really challenge the iPod. M$ will still have to make a better product, and I seriously doubt that's gonna happen...

The Beatles management waited for what they thought was the most opportune time to release their work to stand out, rather than while most other catalogs were being released.

They also felt they should recieve more money.

"It should be noted that Microsoft IS NOT LOSING MONEY ON EVERY ZUNE SOLD. Balmer said that the $299 pricepoint "would've been better," but Apple has the benefit of volume and that they had to be competitive..."

Yeah, Balmer said... As long as you don't count Toshiba's R&D;, packaging, shipping, marketing, advertising, music company payoffs, towels, chairs, etc. WE ARE NOT LOSING MONEY ON EACH ZUNE!!! He also said that Vista was going to ship this year.

Yeah, Balmer said... As long as you don't count Toshiba's R&D;, packaging, shipping, marketing, advertising, music company payoffs, towels, chairs, etc. WE ARE NOT LOSING MONEY ON EACH ZUNE!!! He also said that Vista was going to ship this year.

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I think it'd be in the best interest of the CEO of a company to be straightforward about the profit or loss of any given product. Sure, I know MS is shabby, but if they were losing money on each sale of a Zune, why should it be a secret? Afterall, it's no secret that every xbox is sold at a loss...

I know Apple gets volume discounts, but it seems logical that if Apple can make a 20 to 30 percent profit at $249 that MS could likely break even.

Keep in mind, however, that no less than eleven albums (I think it's eleven) were released since 1990, both remasters of the old familiar tunes and first-release session work. For vinyl and CD collectors, these were must-haves. There is surely very little left of the unreleased recordings, and future anthologies will be able to do little that has not been done before.

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Is that why The Beatles "One" album sold 11 million copies in 2000? A compilation of all previously released recordings.

Or better yet these numbers:

Top shipping albums annually

1964 - The Beatles - Meet the Beatles - 5.0m
1965 - The Beatles - Rubber Soul - 6.0m
1966 - The Beatles - Revolver - 5.0m
1967 - The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper - 11.0m
1968 - The Beatles - White Album - 9.5m
1969 - The Beatles - Abbey Road - 12.0m

why isn't there a email address on the Apple Corps website????

I would guess that most of the people who purchased digital Beatle albums were replacing worn tapes and vinyl discs and were not, in fact, new fans. These users will have likely ripped their tunes from CD. So I reckon that the opportunity for owners of old Beatles tunes to cash in big on downloads is past.

McCartney loves money, as every Beatles moves of the last 25 years have shown us. So, I wouldn't be surprised by a Beatles-Microsoft deal. But, I think that it still not enough to hurt Apple.

My concern is how would Microsoft will deal with the thousands of other music labels ? Could it be less than the agreement with Univer... Anyway, is the Zune will be going to cost thousands of dollars because Microsoft "thinks" record labels deserve it ?

Surely we will have lot of fun watching whats coming in with this new rule that Microsoft is trying to put in the game...

dukemeiser wrote:

"a) If you're a Beatles fan, you've almost certainly bought all of their CDs with no need to buy a digital one
b) If you're not a fan, then you wouldn't buy their songs anyway."

Well, a) may be true but b) is definably not. Else any band that has been around awhile would not be selling songs. If they put their collection on iTunes they will probably sell a lot of songs. Likely they will find a lot of new (younger) fans who will find them and discover they really like them. I think they have been missing out of a new generation who are probably not all that familiar with their music.

Oh, and if they put their songs on MS's Zune site - they will likely sell very few songs. There are no Zunes out their now, there is no compelling reason to buy one, and the Beetle's will once again miss out on getting their music to a new generation.

Grew up with Beatles, loved Beatles, bought all Beatles LPs and 45s (now unfortunately gone, damn) but frankly their lawsuits directed at Apple Computer have caused me to view them with somewhat less love and I probably won't be downloading many songs. Maybe a few....