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Google and Amazon Bid for The Beatles' Catalog as EMI and Apple Corps Squabbled

For the music industry, this is very big news and the music business forums I am a member of are exploding full of excitement.

For the tech industry, no-one cares. Hence why MacRumours was like... meh. Despite this being news related to Apple, MacRumours does not have the correct audience for this type of news.
 
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Rootus said:
WiiDSmoker said:
A day in which no one cared.
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Yeah right, that's why the Beatles songs are ranked so high in iTunes... because nobody cares.
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They could potentially look like strong sales as a result of everything else selling poorly. What would be telling is what happens in a couple of weeks from now.
 
rish said:
They could potentially look like strong sales as a result of everything else selling poorly.
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In which case, it would be strong sales in comparison with everything else. Which is pretty much the only metric you can use with sales. It's all relative.

The Beatles release was big news in the music industry, and in the general press. People are interested. Sales are booming. What more is there to say?
 
Its a shame Paul McCartney and George Martin wont see a penny of this deal or revenue (you know, the guys who actually were involved in making the music).

Everything that surrounds The Beatles sucks of money grabbing suits arguing with expensive lawyers on who owns what.

Doesn't detract from The Beatles still today being the most influential band ever, and one of the most popular.
 
Nomadski said:
Its a shame Paul McCartney and George Martin wont see a penny of this deal or revenue (you know, the guys who actually were involved in making the music).

Everything that surrounds The Beatles sucks of money grabbing suits arguing with expensive lawyers on who owns what.

Doesn't detract from The Beatles still today being the most influential band ever, and one of the most popular.
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Oh, I'm sure apple is just around the corner with the....

iResurrector.

But really, there's nothing that can be done about that, other than their families, or estates reaping the rewards.
 
Nomadski said:
Everything that surrounds The Beatles sucks of money grabbing suits arguing with expensive lawyers on who owns what.
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That's not exactly true. In the early days it was a total wild west situation where the band got jacked out of many millions of dollars and lots of inferior Beatles product was sold. Later, when the band actually took control of their entire marketing wing by creating Apple Corps, things became much more controlled. If you look at the release history for the Beatles albums you'll see that there have been very few compared to other bands of the era like The Rolling Stones. Apple Corps handles the release of the records much the way that Disney handles the release of their films. Additionally, all ancillary marketing like t-shirts, figurines, Beatle branded nick knacks like coffee cups and so forth are very tightly controlled by Apple Corps' marketing department. Nothing gets licensed without their approval. Today it's very difficult to find inferior Beatles product. They don't engage in wanton money grabbing to anywhere near the degree that other huge acts do. Consider how The Who has handled their catalogue and ancillary marketing efforts for example.


roadbloc said:
For the music industry, this is very big news and the music business forums I am a member of are exploding full of excitement.
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I'm sure they are. This move officially signals the death of physical media for music distribution. There are only a few holdouts now, and they'll follow suit in short order.
 
Not planning to download any of the Beetles songs anytime soon...BUT I will say that it still IS a coup for Apple and THAT'S important. It reinforces the dominant influence this company has towards the music industry. Yeah it won't be exclusive within the year...but who cares...Apple has bragging rights over any other company that they got it first. Amazon / Google / or whoever would be doing the same thing.

Newsworthy? Yes. Deserves the hype? No. But then again, Apple just put a simple ad out, and of course the the media and their mother put the hype out for us to imagine. Moral of the story: don't expect so much next time!:)
 
JonnyBravo said:
Not planning to download any of the Beetles songs anytime soon...BUT I will say that it still IS a coup for Apple and THAT'S important. It reinforces the dominant influence this company has towards the music industry. Yeah it won't be exclusive within the year...but who cares...Apple has bragging rights over any other company that they got it first. Amazon / Google / or whoever would be doing the same thing.

Newsworthy? Yes. Deserves the hype? No. But then again, Apple just put a simple ad out, and of course the the media and their mother put the hype out for us to imagine. Moral of the story: don't expect so much next time!:)
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In the immortal words of Public Enemy:

Don't...

Don't, don't, don't...

Don't believe the hype.

Don't believe the hype.
 
WiiDSmoker said:
A day in which no one cared.
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speak for yourself loser



person A: "Hey! why cant i get the Beatles on my Zune?!"
persons B-Z: "Uh-what the hells a Zoon!? (sic) ROFL
---
I remember the Zoon Loon home page promising a year ago that THEY would be the ones to get the Beatles catalog "the ink just has to dry on the agreement" they said.
Stoopid (sic) MS A**holes! Gates lickers
 
42baum said:
Right now Amazon is selling the brand new remastered Beatles CD's for $7.99 apiece. Free shipping for orders over $25 and no sales tax. So, after all the years of hype and negotiations, Apple just got blown out of the water. It will take a few seconds to import each CD into your library, but for $5 bucks per album, that's a no-brainer. The red and blue compilation albums are $12.99 at Amazon vs. $19.99 on iTunes.
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Haha yeah. Apple was blown out of the water, Apple shouldn't have really done that at all. I predict that no one will buy any Beatles music off iTunes cause they have them on Amazon. Apple would have been better off with out the Beatles cause... Well..... They could just get them from Amazon???? I don't see how that is relevant at all.
I mean no one in there right mind, least of all Apple, would EVER release a product that cost more than a similar one and expect to make money from it... Oh wait......
 
And all these sales are because there's been no access to the Beatles music until now and the entire world has been waiting 30 years for this day?

I don't get it.
 
MrSmith said:
And all these sales are because there's been no access to the Beatles music until now and the entire world has been waiting 30 years for this day?

I don't get it.
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some people just use itunes and dont want to rip cd's
 
The sales, coupled with the fact of the history of legal battles between the two companies clearly shows that this is a big deal.

This brings decades of disputes to an end and also puts one of histories biggest bands on digital distribution. Personally Im not a huge Beatles fan (I have a couple of their songs) but at least I'm not as short sighted as some people to see how big this is.
 
JeffDM said:
Apparently it's Walmart:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001018037



I agree, internet polls are a gameable system and there's no way to discern the reason for picking which option.



They're not _that_ high on the iTunes US charts though. The top song is at #17, the next song is down the list a bit more, #25, then #32. A good showing, but not the chart-topping gangbusters I thought it would be.
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They have around 60 of the top 200 singles. That's 1/3 of the top 200 being charted by a single band. You aren't impressed by that?
 
42baum said:
Right now Amazon is selling the brand new remastered Beatles CD's for $7.99 apiece. Free shipping for orders over $25 and no sales tax. So, after all the years of hype and negotiations, Apple just got blown out of the water. It will take a few seconds to import each CD into your library, but for $5 bucks per album, that's a no-brainer. The red and blue compilation albums are $12.99 at Amazon vs. $19.99 on iTunes.
Click to expand...

But loads of the non-Beatles albums on iTunes are available cheaper on CD elsewhere, yet people still buy them from iTMS. So why is the Beatles going to be any different? And of course there's those who just want singles rather than entire albums.

And iTMS is in a leading position for impulse buyers; loads of the people who have bought Beatles albums off iTunes over the last couple of days will be well aware they could have bought them on CD at any time, it's only when something triggers your mind that you suddenly think "Hey, I quite like some of their stuff now I come to think of it". Ironically the several thousand posts on MacRumors has probably had a subliminal effect on some members who will have done so who might not otherwise had these forums (i.e. us) not made such a big issue of the releases.
 
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OllyW said:
What makes you think this?

The Beatles and EMI own the recordings so they'll get their cut from the iTunes sales.
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People have some very wierd ideas how this all works don't they.

I'm surprised by the number of people who think Apple have the upper hand and not the record labels.
 
kallisti said:
They have around 60 of the top 200 singles. That's 1/3 of the top 200 being charted by a single band. You aren't impressed by that?
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The album chart is more impressive though, 16 in top 30 with the $149 box set tenth! The box set must be the highest grossing album by far.
 
42baum said:
Right now Amazon is selling the brand new remastered Beatles CD's for $7.99 apiece. Free shipping for orders over $25 and no sales tax. So, after all the years of hype and negotiations, Apple just got blown out of the water. It will take a few seconds to import each CD into your library, but for $5 bucks per album, that's a no-brainer. The red and blue compilation albums are $12.99 at Amazon vs. $19.99 on iTunes.
Click to expand...

You see years of hype, I see one ad on Apple's front page for one day. Seems that there must be a reality distortion field somewhere.

But let's analyse this: So Apple sells the red/blue albums for $19.99, while Amazon sells them from $12.99. Forget about the "no sales tax": You always have to pay sales tax in your next income tax statement. So Amazon isn't cheaper, they just enable tax evasion on your behalf.

Back to the price: Apple takes 30% of the sales price and gives 70% to the record company. So Apple gives $14.00 to the record company, while Amazon sells the album for $12.99. So what is going on? The possibilities are that Amazon has an extra special deal with the record company, making it possible to undercut Apple by 35% and still make money. Or Amazon is so panicky that they actually lose money on every single sale. Which I think is more likely. So there are all these people here posting "who cares" and Amazon cares so much that they lose one dollar on every sale, plus the cost of package, shipping, handling, just to undercut Apple. Yes, they really care.

That said, any Apple + Beatles fan should really buy the CDs from Amazon at that price; saves you money at the expense of Amazon. And remember that Amazon wouldn't sell for $12.99 if the albums weren't available on iTunes.
 
dernhelm said:
Please. All 17 albums are ranked in the top 50. Apparently a lot of people care. If you don't, then fine - what are you doing on this thread?
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What top 50? You mean iTunes top 50? The top 50 the changes daily as new music hits the store?

The same top 50 that was saturated with Michael Jackson last summer when he died? Any of those albums still there? No.

Beatles will be gone from all iTunes top charts in a few weeks.
 
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