Beatles catalogue inches closer to digital release

Paul McCartney has indicated that the songs of The Beatles, one of the last holdouts in music’s move to digital, will likely become available online beginning next year.

“It’s all happening soon,” McCartney told Billboard today in an interview keyed to his new ‘McCartney Years’ DVD set. “Most of us are all sort of ready. The whole thing is primed, ready to go – there's just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it's being cleared up as we speak, so it shouldn't be too long. It's down to fine-tuning, but I'm pretty sure it'll be happening next year, 2008."

The solo works of all four of the individual Beatles have long been available online, but the group’s seminal 1960’s albums have remained mired in contractual disputes.

In addition, as McCartney explains, the surviving band members and their estates have been worried about rushing matters: “You’ve got to get these things right. You don’t want to do something that’s as cool as that and in three years’ time you think, ‘Oh God, why did we do that?’”

--By our Los Angeles staff.
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