This FoxNews.com story offers some confirmation that the Beatles will offering their music catalog digitally. Neil Aspinall, head of Apple Corps Ltd. confirms that all 13 core Beatles albums have been remastered.
There have been a lot of rumors and speculation that Apple and the Beatles had come to an exclusive agreement to release the Beatles catalog on iTunes. The rumors were reinforced when Apple Inc and Apple Corps announced a trademark agreement earlier this month in which Apple Inc will own all the trademarks related to "Apple" and license the trademarks back to Apple Corps for continued use.
Aspinall's comments indicate that they will be releasing the Beatles catalog in time, but that it will not be exclusive to iTunes:
But now Aspinall says that when the Beatles songs do get put on the Internet officially, it will be on all the services, not just one. So all the Beatles songs will be found on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc. Thats very PC of him!
Another interesting comment suggests that there was more to the licensing agreement between Apple Inc and Apple Corps than revealed by the announcement:
The Beatles, sources say (and not Aspinall, whom I didn't even discuss this with), may have won royalties on Apple iTunes/iPod hardware as part of the settlement.
