Amid the speculation today about whether The Beatles’ digital remastering is a prelude, finally, to online retail, here are a couple of sobering data points worth considering ... Long story short: the Fab Four are already losing huge amounts to illegal downloading. Of the people who currently use P2P networks,…

The Beatles’ availability through online music retail may be lurching, slowly ever closer - but don’t bet on it. EMI Music and the band’s Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Corps company say the back catalogue has been “digitally remastered” for release on compact disc on September 9 (9-9-09), the same day the…

After giving precious few details when they announced the title back in September, MTV’s Harmonix games studio and The Beatles’ *Apple* Corps have opened BeatlesRockBand.com to offer a preorder sign-up for the upcoming game based on the band—and, as the name suggests, turns out it’s a Rock Band spinoff after…

Viacom’s Harmonix is breaking out of its annual development cycle for Rock Band this year to focus on the new Beatles’ game, due out in time for the holiday season, and to avoid the limits that come along with cranking out new versions, CEO Alex Rigopulos told attendees at Billboard…

We knew it was too crafty to be true - Norwegian public radio network NRK, which on Monday began giving away The Beatles’ entire back catalogue as podcast downloads, last night pulled the endeavour after realising the whole thing is probably illegal. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)…

Sir Paul McCartney has thrown some cold water on hopes that Beatles’ recordings would finally make it to iTunes, saying that negotiations with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Inc. have stalled, AP reported. As has happened many times before, fans of the band’s music thought they might finally be ready for the…

MTV’s Harmonix games studio and The Beatles’ *Apple* Corps label have confirmed they will develop “a music-making” video game that allows gamers to play some of the band’s songs from its UK back-catalog. The title has no scheduled release date but will be ready by Christmas of next year, the…

We’re still waiting for The Beatles to finally start selling the back-catalog online, but the band looks set to take one more step in that direction Thursday. Their *Apple* Corps label and MTV will announce “an exclusive agreement to develop a global music project” at 10 a.m. eastern time (2pm…

Beatles representatives, who haven’t yet reached a deal to offer the band’s music online, are now in talks with two video games companies for a Beatles-themed video game, in a move that could pave the way for a broader licensing of the Fab Four’s catalog, reports FT. The reps have…

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…

Finally, George Harrison’s solo music has gone digital. Harrison died in 2001; his estate was the remaining holdout of the four Beatles but, according to Reuters, EMI’s Parlophone label said today that nine of his albums are available through “all digital service providers” and that more albums will follow. I…

Updated below:- Last month, EMI made Paul McCartney’s back-catalog available to digital music retailers; next up it’s Ringo Starr. EMI will give debut digital releases to four of Starr’s previous albums plus his forthcoming 20-track hits collection, Photograph: The Very Best Of Ringo Starr, on August 28. That means inclusion…

As Paul McCartney prepares to release his first original album available for download sales, he has told Billboard magazine that a deal to distribute the Beatles’ catalog for online downloading is “virtually settled,” Billboard Biz reports. McCartney’s new album, Memory Almost Full, will be his first solo release available for…

EMI and The Beatles have settled their ongoing copyright dispute in a move that could finally end up making the Fab Four’s music available from online download sites. The band’s holding company Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Corps took the label to court in London and New York in 2005, claiming, EMI,…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Inc., the company formerly known as Apple Computer, and the Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd. have settled their trademark dispute yet again. Apple Inc., which dropped the word computer from its name last month, will own all of the trademarks related to “Apple”—and will license some of them…

The biggest holdout in digital music is coming to digital stores soon, as I reported earlier last month in my interview with David Munns, CEO of EMI north America. Now Fortune reports that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes is close to a deal to bring the Beatles catalog online. Apple is…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Corps, the label founded by the Beatles, lost a trademark case against Apple Computers, which successfully argued before a British court that it had stayed true to the letter of an agreement governing trademark use with music. Justice Anthony Mann ruled that the computer company only used…

So is the buzz around town…Neil Aspinall, who runs Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Records, the fab four’s record label and holding company, said that the Beatles recordings are the process of being digitally remastered, which would of course be a first step to selling them online. Meanwhile, Michael Jackson, who controls…

The speculation on Beatles signing up with anyone continues: they are asking for as much as $15 million for six months of exclusive rights to the music, reports News.com. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) may be the only one willing to pay it, along with settling the suit. But others say rumors…