Clues to when the Beatles’ catalog would finally arrive online have been trickling out in bits and pieces for the past year. Now, Paul McCartney tells Billboard that he’s “pretty sure” the band’s music would go digital in 2008. Still, he didn’t offer a hint as to what part of 2008 the music would be accessible on the internet. McCartney attributed the holdup to contractual red-tape in part, as well as the desire to time the release just right: “The whole thing is primed, ready to go—there’s just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it’s being cleared up as we speak, so it shouldn’t be too long. It’s down to fine-tuning…”

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The final hurdle to bringing the Beatles’ music online was cleared last month, when the estate of late Beatle George Harrison started to put his solo work online. At the time, his widow, Olivia Harrison said she expected the band’s music would be available on the web in 2008. The latest round of hopes for online Beatles music started in February, when the band’s label, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Corp., settled its long-standing trademark dispute with Apple Inc.