A point of interest for music fans around the world has been the ongoing wait for the back catalog of the Beatles to be made available as a legal music download on iTunes. Fans of the Beatles can, of course, get their free music downloads from filesharing programs, but the wait for the file to become available on iTunes is interesting because it’s weird that songs by the greatest band of all time aren’t available from the world’s biggest online music store.

Some have said that the legal music downloads will be available by the end of the year, but it’s anybody’s guess what the reality is. In February 2007, Apple settled a litigation with Apple Corps, who manage the Beatles’ back cat, over Apple’s use of its own brand name. Since then, the arrival of the back cat on iTunes has been “imminent”.

Despite press reports, the label involved, EMI/Capitol, has refused to comment, although Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and all involved are said to be eager to get the tunes available for fans to buy. With filesharing so rampant, it’s surprising that a deal hasn’t been worked out sooner.

We’ll have to wait and see.

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