A few days ago, we found out that Apple Corps and EMI would finally release the Beatles' catalog in a digital format. It's not that we couldn't have just purchased CDs and ripped them—that's what everyone's been doing for years now—it's just that it felt like progress. In reality, it was just the near-random actions of someone who has no idea what's going on, at all. From the Guardian via Ars, Paul McCartney's view on selling the Beatles' music online:
"I met [EMI's chief executive] on a plane once," said McCartney. I said: 'What is the problem? I want to do it, we all want to do it.' And he explained that in the deal that we want, they feel exposed. If [digitised Beatles music] gets out, if one employee decides to take it home and wap it on to the internet, we would have the right to say, 'Now you recompense us for that.' And they're scared of that."
Just to be clear, Paul McCartney says he wants to sell music online, but he's worried that someone could conceivably download it, upload it back to the internet, and open the floodgates to piracy. As opposed to just uploading the higher-quality digital files you're selling to people on Apple-shaped USB drives right now, or on CDs, more than a decade ago. And even worse, he expects an agreement to be compensated if people share his music, as if it would be somehow correlated with the release of Beatles' tracks online, which EMI is scared of because it's insane.
Poor Paul! Someone should tell him, you know, about all the wapping. [Ars Technica]
