Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years
from the well-that's-compelling dept
The WSJ is reporting that Apple is getting set to announce that the Beatles’ music is finally available on iTunes, something that tons of online music stores have been trying to offer for years and years without any luck. Given that Steve Jobs allegedly named his company “Apple” after the Beatles’ “Apple Corp.” — it’s been a particular goal of Jobs to get their music into his store (even with the legal fights that have been had over the name). Either way, while I’m sure Steve Jobs will make this out to be the most amazing thing since the invention of electrical power, it’s kind of worth pointing out that the Beatles’ music has been widely available online for years via file sharing options. Putting this in perspective, all this is really doing is giving people a chance to pay money for music they’ve probably already been getting for free. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal, and makes you wonder what the hell took so long.
Comments on “Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years”
Too funny
Just that. Too funny. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have nearly the entire Beatles discography stashed somewhere, and most of those people would have been more than happy to pay for it. In fact, most of those people have paid for that same content several times over replacing worn out albums, then 8-track tapes, then cassettes, then disks.
Most of them don’t feel a twinge of guilt over “pirating” what they have, either, having already paid for the rights, artwork, royalties, distribution, and myriad other costs so many times.
Silly humans.
Sorry, Beatles!
I did pay for it, with BlueBeat or whatever that company was with the strange copyright claim. Before that, I simply copied my friend’s discs. We all did.
We didn’t do it because we were cheap. We did it because it was the only way to get the music.
Sorry, Beatles! You’re too late. I already paid someone for your music. Too bad it couldn’t be you.
haha 12 years late
1998 was last time i needed to download music
sides the beatles don’t need any more money, and they aren’t creating new works….so what is copyright supposed to do for them again?
Now that is funny right there
“while I’m sure Steve Jobs will make this out to be the most amazing thing since the invention of electrical power”
Now this is funny right here. SJ does have a way of making things sound much bigger than they are. 🙂
Re: Now that is funny right there
Also, am I the only one in the world that doesn’t actually like their music?
Re: Re: Now that is funny right there
You are not. Their early stuff was the Backstreet Boys of the 60’s and their later stuff was like listening to your super nerdy high school friend ramble on about love and happiness after smoking weed for the first time.
Neither of those things is very pleasurable. I’ll take the Stones, Elvis, Zepplin, the Doors, and The Who over the any day of the week….
Re: Re: Re: Now that is funny right there
Yeah, the Doors are definitely what you want if you’re not looking for something written while the artist(s) were stoned out of their gourd. No, wait…
Re: Re: Now that is funny right there
Nope – I’m not particularly fond of them either.
Re: Re: Re: Now that is funny right there
Well, yeah they were stoned, but they were like the Walter Payton of being fucked up: they acted like they’d been there before…because….you know…they had.
Listening to the Beatles after Dylan introduced them to pot was like listening to a bunch of high school kids. “Oh, everything is pretty! Can’t we all just get along?”
No. No we can’t. Because this is the end, my only friend. The end. So come on and light my fire, peace frog….
Re: Re: Re:2 Now that is funny right there
I ♥ everyone that you list. And the Beatles. 🙂
Re: Now that is funny right there
Yeah and changing technology’s course…
Beatles
>>>We did it because it was the only way to get the music.
Actually, the Beatles catalog did very well in the past decade: “1” was the best-selling album and the Beatles were the second best-selling act, after Eminem. (This is in the U.S., according to SoundScan, counting 10 songs as an album.) On a relative basis, they did better then they have since the sixties.
The lack of iTunes availability may have inconvenienced you, but there’s very little evidence that it hurt the band.
Re: Beatles
I didn’t say that it hurt the band. I don’t think anyone said that it hurt the band, except you.
And I wouldn’t purchase it from iTunes, anyway. It was the lack of digital availability. I live in a relatively large city and we still didn’t have any stores that carried a any Beatles CDs and, of course, this is the first really legal digital download.
So my statement stands. 🙂
Re: Beatles
“The lack of iTunes availability may have inconvenienced you, but there’s very little evidence that it hurt the band.”
I, for one, have never bought their albums on CD. For a reasonable price, I may have bought them on MP3. My inconvenience may have hurt them. You know, like most bands, I might have dipped into their albums a song or 2 at a time where I may not have bought their full albums at $15 or whatever a pop. Just like those people who played Beatles Rock Band and only wanted to buy the songs they liked playing – usually teenagers unfamiliar with the albums who might find that to be a decent road into their music.
It’s not the fans – who most likely would have bought their music on CD already – who were inconvenienced. It’s the casual listeners who wouldn’t buy full albums at full price. The inconvenience is the band’s loss.
Not to mention, the marginally higher cost (from digital to physical) to simply purchase a Beatles CD and import it into iTunes has never exactly been a huge barrier.
Woohoo! I can finally pay for all 29 albums, not counting compilation albums or singles, at a dollar+ a track instead of getting them all for free! Wait, what?
Re: Re:
I got all of it for like, $20, quasi-legally. 🙂
I’m just waiting for Richard Starkey to become President of the Restored United States.
Wait, What? People still pay for music?
Damn the expense!
First off – come on guys, if you don’t like the Beatles you might as well say “I don’t like music.” And you can’t say you don’t like the Beatles and then list of bunch of “better” bands that were all highly influenced by the Beatles sound.
That being said, they just remastered pretty much the entire Beatles collection last September, does anybody remember the price for the box set? It sold for $260 in stores. How ridiculous is that for a bunch of pop music that everybody has already. Its hard not to feel in the right when downloading their library illegally.
So whats the remastered library gonna be available on iTunes at the new sales price of $200?
Lets just think about what John Lennon would have said about all of this.
Re: Damn the expense!
Actually I can say I like music but don’t like the Beatles. See it was easy. I don’t like Elvis either, but still feel free to like bands who were influenced by him.
Re: Damn the expense!
I admire their place in modern musicology but, I don’t enjoy listening to them. So I guess “I don’t like music”, even though i have degrees in music and make a significant proportion of my yearly income from music.
I can list a ton of ‘better’ bands, that were heavily influenced by The Beatles. And I’ve played many pieces influenced by them, that doesn’t mean I have to ‘like’ the source material (as in actually sit down and listen for pure enjoyment compared to listening for ‘work’).
Re: Damn the expense!
And you can’t say you don’t like the Beatles and then list of bunch of “better” bands that were all highly influenced by the Beatles sound.
Yes, yes, you can. Fairly easily, in fact. You know, because descriptive such as the words ‘like’ and ‘better’ are all subject to, you know, those pesky things called opinions.
Re: Re: Damn the expense!
over the past few days you have become my second favorite techdirt commenter. Just thought you might want to know.
Re: Re: Re: Damn the expense!
It’s true; I am full of win.
/arrogance
No, really. Thanks. 🙂
Re: Re: Re:2 Damn the expense!
What he said. And you’re rapid approaching dear old dad. 😉
Re: Re: Re: Damn the expense!
My husband (The real one, not the Love Child. :P) wants to know who #1 is? 😀
Re: Re: Re:2 Damn the expense!
Well, mine is none other than Dark Helmet. 😀
Re: Re: Re:2 Damn the expense!
Please. Like you really had to ask….
Re: Re: Re:3 Damn the expense!
However, father, Rose is a helluva lot cuter than you.
Re: Re: Re:3 Damn the expense!
I guess you’re everyone’s favorite… But I like the whole regular group. We’re all full of win, here. Even the trolls are full of win, kind of.
Re: Re: Re:2 Damn the expense!
Dark Helmet. Don’t let it get to you, though, DH is a tough one to top.
Re: Damn the expense!
most music was modeled after something. The first “song” was most likely created aster a person heard two seagulls fighting. Rock and roll owes it’s roots to blues and Jazz. Its the circle of life and personally, I am glad I was not the guy that heard 2 seagulls going at it. I don’t like Jazz much though there are some songs I like that are jazz.
My point is, just because the roots of music goes somewhere, doesn’t mean you like that somewhere.
I like The Doors, the big bopper, Cherry poppin daddies, infact I love music period. Do I buy country music or current R&B music also known as rap crap? no. I do however like some songs from it, and I do feel they are music.
Re: Damn the expense!
Lets just think about what John Lennon would have said about all of this.
what john lennon did say about all this:
“Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.”
Re: Re: Damn the expense!
what john lennon did say about all this:
Get a job, hippy!
Good music died with Sinatra!
Re: Damn the expense!
c’mon…..dont be ‘that guy’.
no one appreciates snobbery being shoved up their snouts.
/likes the beatles
//likes pretty much all music -except rap and country
///i have a feeling that like others from that era, he would probably have a similar view as david gilmore.
Re: Damn the expense!
Wow, your ignorance of how music is created is amazing!
As Berenerd already pointed out, all music is influenced by something else. The Beatles were influenced by other music (though, since I don’t listen to the Beatles, I don’t know who their influences were). I have news for you, most (popular) music after the Beatles was probably influenced in one way or another by them.
Try applying that same logic to other genres (art, literature, movies, books, etc) and see how well they work.
Re: Damn the expense!
“First off – come on guys, if you don’t like the Beatles you might as well say “I don’t like music.””
That’s perfectly possible, you know, due to that being a completely subjective opinion and nothing to do with fact.
“And you can’t say you don’t like the Beatles and then list of bunch of “better” bands that were all highly influenced by the Beatles sound.”
Why, yes indeed you can. Everything before The Beatles was not influenced by them, and many ripped off by The Beatles themselves. As for afterwards, well please illustrate how, say, Public Enemy, The Prodigy and Burial were influenced by them. This should be an interesting revelation, if you’re up to it.
“How ridiculous is that for a bunch of pop music that everybody has already.”
Apart from the new generation who have never heard one of their albums, of course, let alone people in their 30s like me who have never bothered to listen to a full album because all the major hits are played ad infinitum everywhere…
Yeah, $260 for all the albums is silly, but don’t assume that everyone already has them.
“Lets just think about what John Lennon would have said about all of this.”
I’d hope he would be disgusted by the modern music industry and have fought to stop it taking certain turns along the way.
“and makes you wonder what the hell took so long.”
The greedy jerks behind The Beatles is what took so long.
I know some will consider this to be a vile troll comment, but I haven’t considered The Beatles to be relevant since the 70’s. The only people I know that are still excited by them are 15+ years older than I am.. but they already own everything on CD.
Snarky often?
Some of us are averse to breaking the law and don’t torrent all of what is illegally available on the internet.
Re: Snarky often?
There is nothing remotely illegal about converting some older Beatles recording to play on an iPod.
Any remarks about “piracy” are probably meant to be tongue-in-cheek and possibly to make fun of Apple Fanboys that like to portray anything not bought from Apple as pirated.
Media that I am free to use any way I like is ultimately of more value. It actually becomes MORE valuable in dollar terms rather than less.
Oh Goody
Now I get to pay for the white album one more time in mp3 format.
Such a privilege I must say.
I think I’ll hold out for the complete Beatles Catalog in Flac.
Something I hope to have before I’m dust in the ground 25 years from now.
Complete BS
For most of us Beatles fans, we’ve already paid for this music at least twice and for some of us three or four or more times ( vinyl, cassette, 8 track, CD). I don’t see any reason to pay for this music one more time.
As far as the format changes were concerned the record companies could always say they had to charge for materials. If I buy the mp3, what material am I paying for???? DRM software?
As far as Im concerned, Im not “stealing” or “pirating” this music at all. I’m getting something Ive paid for a few times for free from P2P networks. The gravy train of format change is over. The record companies should be HAPPY it lasted as long as it did. Now they have to actually work and think of new ways to screw their employees and customers, because Im done being robbed by format changes.
“Mama take this CD from me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s getting dark too dark to see
Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door”
Must consume now!
TechDirt, Slashdot, Wired, CNN, the Beeb. All the frenzy about this. Must be a slow news day.
I once had a music provider, or should I say it once had me.
I still would download the Beatles.
Oops
Anyways, I would still pirate the Beatles work, even if it was available for purchase.
The members themselves no longer profit, and I dont see fit to give the money to others, who played no part (other than purchasing rights at the right time) in creation of the art.
Nuff said, I dont pirate because Im cheap, I pirate because I know the artists make much more profit (not money, profit) off of merchandise such as T-Shirts (which I cannot pirate).
Thats why I am wearing a Linkin Park T-Shirt, but I pirated the album. I refuse to give money to the greedy middlemen.
Wait... So.... What?
Wait… So this is what Apple’s Exciting Announcement was? Talk about a waste of time…