Fans hope downloads are fruit of Apple deal
The long and winding road that would allow music lovers to finally meet the Beatles via digital downloads still has a few miles to go despite a copyright settlement Monday that raised hopes it would happen soon.
Although the Beatles’ Apple Corps record label made peace with computer and digital media company Apple Inc. over their uses of the fruit as a logo, there are hurdles to clear before “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” can be purchased on iTunes.
Details need to be worked out between Apple Corps and record label EMI, as well as among Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the heirs of John Lennon and George Harrison.
“We’re certainly hopeful that we could add the Beatles’ music to iTunes,” said Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc. “But we don’t have anything to announce about that today.”
The confidential settlement will allow Apple Inc. to own the trademarks related to “Apple,” licensing some of them to Apple Corps.
“We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks,” Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a statement. “It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”
Neal Aspinall, manager of Apple Corps, offered a similar, if terse, statement: “It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on.”
The Beatles were one of the last bands to embrace compact discs in the late 1980s and have not permitted any online service to sell their music. Some solo work by McCartney and Starr is available on iTunes.
Speculation that Beatles music would be available on iTunes increased in November, after David Munns, then chief executive of EMI North America, said the Fab Four would be coming to the Web soon.
Some guessed that Apple Inc. would announce the news during the Super Bowl, others said the band would release the recent remixed album “Love” online on Valentine’s Day.
Then Beatles fan Jobs teased other enthusiasts in January, when he played “Lovely Rita,” from “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band,” while unveiling the iPhone and announcing that the company had sliced “Computer” out of its name. But he didn’t mention the band or any deal during the rest of the presentation.
The two Apples have been arguing about the apple-style logo since the late 1970s. A 1981 agreement stipulated that Apple Computer could use the logo for computers and software and Apple Corps could use it for music and performances. It said the fruit could appear in multicolored form for the computer company and whole, green or cut in half for the band.
In 1991, the companies reached another agreement after Apple launched a line of PCs with software for playing music. Apple Computer paid $26.5 million for wider use of the trademark.
Apple Inc. probably parted with more money in Monday’s settlement, said Paul Fleischut, a trademark attorney with Senniger Powers in St. Louis. The next logical step after the settlement, he said, is to make Beatles music available on iTunes.
“They seem to have put their differences behind them to reach this agreement,” he said.
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Times staff writer Randy Lewis contributed to this report.
