Apple buys Beatle love at $400 million
10 Mar 2008 | 14:52 GMT
Helps pay for the divorce
POT-HEAD BEATLE Paul McCartney has signed a deal worth $400 million with Apple, which will finally allow the outfit to distribute the entire Beatles' back catalogue on Itunes.
McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison's families, EMI, Sony and Michael Jackson, who all in some way or another claim ownership rights to the Fab Four's hits, will each get their share of the transaction.
Rumours of such a deal actually happening have been floating around for years now, but this time the rumours seem to have some credence to them. The Daily Wail even speculates that McCartney may have been prompted to finally strike the deal in a Faustian move to fund his expensive divorce from Heather Mills.
The Daily Torygraph reckons that albums like Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album and Help, "will be available from iTunes, " and are expected to top the download charts.
Apple hasn't yet confirmed the agreement, but the deal has been something of a holy grail for Apple chief magician, Steve Jobs, for quite some time. It is also not entirely unrelated to the earlier court case between the Beatles' record label "Apple" and Apple inc over the use of their name and logo. The case was finally laid to rest in February of last year. µ
© 2007 Incisive Media Investments Ltd. 2007