The Apples Come Together

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If left unchanged, British copyright protections on Beatles songs like Please Please Me and Love Me Do will expire in 2013 (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/28/06, "Beatles Could Lose EU Copyrights in 2013").

It appears that the time to cash in on digital sales via services like iTunes is starting to evaporate, especially if the music is set to start leaking into the public domain in the country where it was originally produced. And while another digital music competitor to rival iTunes could emerge over the course of six years, that's a long time to wait for revenue from digital sales.

A Defining Digital Alliance?

Speculation has been rife about what Apple might do were it to sign a deal to add the Beatles catalog to iTunes. In one notable example, Apple released a special edition iPod music player to coincide with the addition of the works of the Irish rock group U2 to the iTunes lineup. The release included a major advertising push for the iPod that included a TV spot showing U2 performing its song Vertigo.

Clearly Apple's high-impact advertising machine could structure a campaign designed to make an Apple-Apple digital music tieup a major event. Apple's iPod-fueled marketing prowess powered the company to nearly $20 billion in revenue for its 2006 fiscal year, and in its most recent quarter ended Dec. 31, it said it sold more than 21 million iPods. It further claims to have sold some 2 billion songs on iTunes (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/18/07, "Apple: What Options Scandal?" and 10/19/06, "Apple's Big Mac").

What's more, a digital media alliance with the Beatles might not only entail music, but a good deal of video content. The Beatles starred in several feature films, including A Hard Day's Night in 1964, Help! in 1965, and the animated Yellow Submarine in 1968, among others. In addition to movies, there are several concert performances and TV appearances that could be released on iTunes if rights agreements are reached.

There's also the prospect of future releases of as yet unknown archival material. In 2003 some 500 tapes containing approximately 80 hours of unreleased Beatles material stolen in the 1970s were recovered in the Netherlands. The tapes are said to contain music recorded during the sessions for the album Let It Be, originally to be called Get Back. Clearly, the long and winding road connecting the two Apples hasn't come to an end.

Hesseldahl is a reporter for BusinessWeek.com.