Steve invites the Beatles to iTunes

The Beatles are losing so much money with all these court cases, when they could be raking-in a ton of money selling on iTunes.

Couple things: corporate lawyers will appeal almost anything - a) they don't make money by trying to save You any money and b) it gives them more negotiating leverage in settleman talks. Otherwise it seems like you've 'given' up.

I could see where Yoko would withhold the songs from itunes since it would play into the hands of the case but now that it's essentially over, I'm sure it will quietly get added in the future. Yoko might talk a good game but 80% market share is 80% market share.

As for the Jacko holdings, he holds 50% of the Beatles publishing catalog, not 50% of Apple Corp which holds the rights to the actual recordings.

For instance, if you wanted to use WHEN I'M 64 for a commercial, you would need to get publishing rights (presuming you're using a non name singer) ... and so you would go to Jacko/Sony ... now, if you wanted the Beatles version, you have to license from Jacko/Sony AND Apple Corp - make sense?

They will have to get permission from Jacko first, as he owns a majority stake in Beatles music.

Jackson might be selling soon, and I'd have to think that Apple Computer (in addition to Apple Corps) would be interested in buying, but I've read where Sony could be the other bidder.

Barkin is on to something - from the article:

When Yoko Ono made John Lennon’s catalogue available digitally last year, she did so on Real/Rhapsody, Napster, MSN and Yahoo! Unlimited, but not on iTunes.

Yoko is still ruining The Beatles and Lennon after all these years...

An appeal is slightly irritating from a consumer point of view. Maybe Apple Corp want to waste another £2M on this, perhaps the publicity is worth it.

Is almost as bad as the whole Lennon-McCartney McCartney-Lennon fiasco.

This is totally Yoko's fault.
It's all Yoko's fault.
Goddamn you, Yoko.

I agree with #5. the beatles are a very talented bunch, but they are also a bunch of greedy idiots. they had home field advantage and could not even get a one of their own judges to agree with them. that is how absurd their argument was...

if I was Jobs I would just freeze them out for the hell of it. but he has some hippie fetish for them, so sure that will not happen, and probably would not be in the consumer interest to bring beatles music to ipod users.

in this emerging digital distribution era, the beatles need Apple more than Apple needs the beatles....so at some point they have to forget about robbing apple of their ipod profits and begin selling music on itunes to establish a real presence in the digital distribution of their product...

I don't know why Apple Corps don't just stop flogging this dead horse. Even if they never bring themselves to putting their catalog on iTMS, surely an appeal is pointless. The judge was perfectly clear in his statement saying "I conclude that the use of the apple logo ... does not suggest a relevant connection with the creative work," and that iTMS was "a form of electronic shop". I doesn't matter how many times the Apple (Computer) logo appears on anything to do with iTMS, which seemed to be what Apple Corps' case relied on, if there has been a clear ruling on the fact that the store is not the same as the creative work. Come on Corps, give it up.

What a bunch of dufuses.

"Can't we all just get along?"

Psh, not when there's money to be made off someone else! ;)