The $400 million agreement being bounced around as a done deal by UPI seemed like a low number even as we learned about it today. Split between living Beatles and the estates of Lennon and Harrison, plus all of the music labels with a stake in such a deal, $400 million didn’t look like a lucrative payday, especially since the world’s most famous boy band still receives fawning veneration to this day.

As it turns out, news of Beatles music coming to iTunes users appears greatly exaggerated. CNET said Sony/ATV denied any such deal took place:

While EMI Group owns the recording rights to the Beatles catalog, Sony and Jackson own the rights to the vast majority of the catalog’s publishing rights. Had a deal been cut, Sony/ATV would “absolutely be informed,” the Sony/ATV spokeswoman said.

EMI and Apple aren’t talking right now, despite the reports swarming all over the Internet as well as in news publications in the UK. At this rate, the wait for The Beatles on a digital music service may outlive the band and all of its fans.

"This is gonna replace CD's soon; guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."
-- Tommy Lee Jones on updating his music collection, Men in Black

The world’s most famous bass player for the world’s most famous boy band finally signed off on the deal the Baby Boomer generation wanted ever since iTunes came on the scene.

The Beatles
(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

A UPI report said McCartney, Ringo Starr, the families of the late John Lennon and George Harrison, music labels EMI and Sony, and Michael Jackson will share in the deal. All of them have some ownership of the rights to The Beatles music.

Though the likelihood of The Beatles appearing on iTunes existed in rumor form for years, the timing of the deal doesn’t seem like the most advantageous for McCartney. He is in the middle of what has been categorized as a bitter divorce from wife Heather Mills.

Being a Beatles deal, maybe it inevitably needed one last bit of drama. The catalog is not on iTunes yet, and Apple has not formally announced the agreement. As the Baby Boomers are hitting retirement age, Apple may wish to speed up the process a bit.