RE: digital Beatles -- the mother of all licensing

["Ken Masters" <kmasters@ithealthed.com>]

Hi All

While this is wonderful news, I think, one really has to wonder 
if the people who worked out this strategy are even vaguely aware 
of how people (especially the youth) access digitised music 
today.

The newer generations pretty much take this approach: why pay for 
a song when simply, by going to Youtube, you can get a free video 
download of it? (e.g. Hey Jude is at: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBWW3OAhgw)

After that, there is plenty of free software that can extract the 
audio from the video, and convert it into any known format for 
playing on any known audio device.

Whereas, if you go the legal route, you have to pay, and then may 
have to jump through any unknown number of legal hoops if you 
decide to buy a new and different audio device, and hope that the 
company doesn't suddenly change its licensing conditions after 
you have purchased the music.

Perhaps the idea was just to announce the deal, hoping that 
newspapers would pick it up, and run what amounts to free 
advertising.  After all, DJs and the like still go the legal 
route (perhaps).

So, a mother of all licensing deals?  "That'll be the day." "I 
don't want to spoil the party" but, "Do you want to know a 
scret?" Perhaps it was, "Yesterday," but now they need some 
"Help."  Now I'll just "Let it be." :-)

Regards

Ken

----

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: digital Beatles -- the mother of all licensing deals?
> From: "Okerson, Ann" <ann.okerson@yale.edu>
> Date: Tue, November 16, 2010 6:08 am
> To: "liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu" <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
>
> Just in from the New York Times, forwarded by your moderator:
>
> November 15, 2010
> Apple Strikes Deal to Sell Beatles Catalog Online
> By BEN SISARIO and MIGUEL HELFT
>
> For the next generation of Beatles' fans, the wait could soon be
> over.
>
> Apple is expected on Tuesday to announce that it has finally
> struck a deal with the Beatles, the best-selling music group of
> all time, and the band's record company, EMI, to sell the band's
> music on iTunes, according to a person with knowledge of the
> private deal who requested anonymity because the agreement is
> still confidential. Depending on the terms of the deal, that
> could mean that, for the first time, customers will be able to
> buy "Please Please Me," "Hey Jude" or "A Day in the Life" online
> rather than on a CD and perhaps even as individual tracks. While
> the move to digital doesn't quite rival the band's first trip
> across the Atlantic to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964,
> it is an acknowledgment that online purchases must be central to
> the music industry's sales strategy.
>
> Apple and EMI declined to comment, and representatives of the
> Beatles and Apple Corps, the band's company (not to be confused
> with the technology company), could not be reached.
>
> <snip>