Apple Beats the Beatles, d/b/a Apple Corps
Why would the Beatles, who long ago escaped their humble Liverpool origins, hold the world’s most successful digital music store to ransom? Why would bassist and songwriter McCartney, who regularly figures in lists of the world’s richest musicians, care about adding to his pile of dough?
My guess is that it’s all part of a bigger strategy. The Beatles catalog is the biggest hole in the digital download arena. Anyone who wants “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” or “I Am the Walrus” on their headphones has to buy an old-fashioned compact disc and download it themselves. That’s set to change.
Apple Polishing
During the proceedings, Apple Corps Managing Director Neil Aspinall said the company was polishing the collection of Beatles recordings to prepare it for downloading. Digital sales tripled last year to $1.1 billion; while that’s still just a fraction of the $33 billion of total music sales, it’s growing rapidly.While the Beatles want to make their songs available through iTunes, they’d prefer to bust the 99 cents-per-song rate that Apple has imposed on everyone else seeking to add to the 1 billion songs sold through iTunes in the past three years.
Never mind that the Rolling Stones are still twanging away, or that Elvis Presley’s 21 No. 1 U.K. singles outscore the 17 notched by the Beatles; there’s no doubt that McCartney regards the Beatles as the most important band that ever strung together a couple of chords.
So the lawsuit, which seemed frivolous at best, may have been no more than a negotiating tactic. Now that it has failed, expect to see “All You Need Is Love” appearing on iTunes in the not-too-distant future — and at the standard price of 99 cents.
Wow. This may have been about opening their own “Apple Corps Music Store” so they could break the 99¢ price point?
The Beatles 1 compilation — 27 tracks — sells at Amazon for $13. Figure iTunes would list the whole collection for $19.99, 99¢ per track, with some tracks restricted to Album Only (as is I would pay anything like 99¢ for Eleanor Rigby). It looks to me like the per track revenue might be better through iTunes.
All you need is love and a pocketful of folding money is more like it.