Beatles Managers sue for Digi-Sales

Beatles management sue Bluebeat

Surprise surprise, to coin a famous Liverpudlian’s phrase, EMI is suing a US website who were found offering unauthorised downloads earlier this week.

Californian website BlueBeat.com were caught selling the entire Beatles’ back-catalogue for 15p a track and streaming whole albums for free, even the recently digitally remastered albums were for sale and stream.

Holders of the archive, EMI has filed a copyright infringement suit in the US.

The significance of the BlueBeat downloads, apart from being unauthorised were that The Beatles never had their catalogue sanctioned for digital release.

As a damage limitation exercise since the BlueBeat downloads appeared on every continent, EMI and Apple Corps have announced they will whet the digital appetite of Beatles fans by releasing a limited edition apple-shaped USB drive containing all 14 of the remastered Beatles albums as well as artwork, documentaries and other extras.

On 7 December a limited number of 30,000 of the drives will go on sale for £200 each.

Discounting the audio files used in recent video game release The Beatles: Rock Band, it will be the first time the legendary quartet’s music has licensed in digital form.