The Beatles Are Now On iTunes
Since the iTunes platform has been out on the market, a lot of people have fallen in love with it since it has made their listening experience more convenient and enjoyable. Most people consider iTunes the best music management system to date. It could have dominated the media center to an even greater extent but for one thing, you could not find any Beatle song in their inventory. Up until now, the Beatles music was unavailable on iTunes this was due to friction between Apple and Apple Corps, which started in the nineteen sixties, decades prior to the existence of iTunes. Mid-November of this year, it was announced that The Beatles could be found in the iTunes Store. Soon The Beatles will also be available on internet radio. So let’s dig deeper into the events of the past 50 years to understand how this happened.
Before gaining notoriety, The Beatles were a jazz band in the United Kingdom. Their manager, Brian Epstein, started to promote his band to recording companies hoping to get the break in 1962. The band ended up signing a contract under Parlophone Records, a small EMI company.
It was at this time that the drummer of the band, Pete Best, was let go. It was also the year when The Beatles started recording for Parlophone Records. Riding a wave of “Beatlemania”, the band toured internationally until 1966; a year later, their manager died. The years that ensued laid the groundwork for the formation of Apple Corps, the Beatles’ own recording company.
Beginning 1968, Apple Corps launched several albums including their self-titled album, “The Beatles”, sharing credit with other recording companies such as EMI and Parlophone. The albums “Yellow Submarine” and “Let it Be” were also released, but this time with nobody else to share credit with. From then on, Apple Corps continued with album production while it also started other businesses such as music publishing and production of movies. Due to unpaid royalties, Apple Corps sued EMI and Capitol Records several times since the seventies. In addition it filed suit against Apple Inc, the computer company, for trademark infringement.
Ten years later, an agreement not to infringe upon each other’s line of business was penned by Apple Corps and Apple Computer. At point in time, Apple Computer did not have the systems in place to enable its customers to listen to music, and radio and records were the only source of Beatles music. In 1989, Apple computer started developing computers that included a digital music interface. This prompted Apple Corps to sue Apple Computer again, claiming breached of the 1981 agreement.
It was only in 2007 that both parties came together to settle their dispute once and for all, four years after Apple computer launched iTunes which dominated the downloadable media market. This agreement with Apple Corps came as welcome news to The Beatles music lovers who were waiting to gain access to their music via iTunes. The Beatles music can also be enjoyed via online radio. This highly publicized settlement was long in coming, and thanks to this settlement, we can now obtain The Beatles music on iTunes.
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