Sir Paul McCartney has thrown cold water on hopes that The Beatles back catalogue will be appearing on iTunes sooner rather than later.
In an interview with Billboard magazine magazine McCartney said Apple Corps and the band's label EMI couldn't agree on terms to release the Beatles' catalogue to iTunes and other digital download services, remastered or not.
"That is constantly being talked of. We'd like to do it. What happens is, when something's as big as The Beatles, it's heavy negotiations," McCartney said.
"We are very for it, we've been pushing it. But there are a couple of sticking points, I understand. So the last word I got back was that it had stalled, the whole process. They [EMI] want something we're not prepared to give them. Hey, sounds like the music business. It's between EMI and The Beatles. What else is new."
This seems to suggest that the negotiations that McCartney spoke of in September, when he told Mojo magazine that various Beatles tracks and albums have been remastered and the results were "better even than we'd hoped," have fallen through.
It was hoped that the remastered selection of Beatles tracks would appear on iTunes early next year.
Apple and EMI
"We have been working very hard to secure an agreement with Apple Corps to make The Beatles' legendary recording catalogue available to fans in digital form," said a spokesperson for EMI. "Unfortunately, the various parties involved have so far been unable to reach agreement, but we really hope that everyone can make progress soon."
McCartney was speaking at the launch of a new CD, The Fireman's 'Electric Arguments'.
It’s the third collaboration but the first with vocals. MySpace users can listen to the album free, after they launched a joint music venture with several record labels this year to challenge Apple's iTunes music store.
The Fireman's 'Electric Arguments' was released on Monday in the UK.
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