Beatles downloads 'soon,' across the online universe

Fab Four fans have been eagerly awaiting the day when the Beatles' music would finally be released in digital form. When Apple Corps finally settled longstanding lawsuits with iTunes maker Apple Inc., that day got a little closer.

Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple Corps, told Fox News a few days ago that since the deal was settled, songs should be available online "soon." And when the Beatles 13 "core albums" are available, they won't be limited to just the dominant iTunes service.

When the songs are offered up, "it will be on all the services, not just one," Aspinall told the news service.

Blog community response:

"On the upside, it's finally out in the open that the Beatles' remastered albums will be available for download... 'at some point.' Hopefully, that'll be sometime in 2007, so that Beatles fans can finally let this one rest in the old 'Apple rumors that came true' repository."
--Infinite Loop

"The major question remaining at this point is what sorts of precautions would an online music store need to take in order to qualify for the catalog. Aside that they could restrict purchasing to album-only, I suspect that 'all you need is DRM.'"
--Listening Post

"Will iTunes get it first? Or will some other service pay an advance to a struggling EMI for bragging rights? Is it possible that the Beatles catalog could even go straight from unavailable to DRM-free mp3's via Amazon? Stay tuned..."
--Hypebot