That includes a few ads, which Apple will apparently be running on TV to let the world know that they’ve finally landed the big fish.
If you load up iTunes this morning, you’ll also see that The Beatles have basically completely taken over the store as well. The front page has a giant banner for the band, and under that are the individual albums, all of which you can buy for $12.99 each (or $19.99 for double albums). Individual songs are the high-end $1.29 a piece. Or you can buy the entire box set of Beatles albums for $149. That includes their Past Masters collection and a live concert film from 1964 — the band’s first U.S. concert.
Apple notes that the latter is an iTunes exclusive, which seems to suggest the rest of The Beatles catalog isn’t. No big surprise there, but I wonder how long it will be until the band shows up on other rival MP3 services. The catalog currently isn’t on Amazon MP3, for example.
And yes, The Beatles are now on Ping.
Sadly, there’s no streaming concert this morning from remaining Beatles Starr and Paul McCartney. Instead they just have the statements from them in the release.
“We’re really excited to bring the Beatles’ music to iTunes. It’s fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around,” write McCartney.
Yoko Ono, the widow of John Lennon writes, “In the joyful spirit of Give Peace A Chance, I think it is so appropriate that we are doing this on John’s 70th birthday year.”
Meanwhile, Olivia Harrison, the wife of George Harrison simply writes, “The Beatles on iTunes—Bravo!“
All four estates had to agree to seal this deal. And you can be sure it’s a lucrative one.
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Authors: MG Siegler