Paul McCartney has hit out at EMI, saying the record label is the reason you can’t buy any of The Beatles back catalogue on iTunes. Speaking to the BBC’s Newsbeat, he spoke of his frustration with the label which is still trying to come to terms with the fact it’s not the 1980s any more. “To tell you the truth I don’t actually understand how it’s got so crazy, I know iTunes would like to do it, so one day it’s going to happen.”
Despite owning possibly the most lucrative collection of songs in the world, McCartney says the label, doesn’t want to play ball. “It’s been business hassles. Not with us, or iTunes. It’s the people in the middle, the record label. There have been all sorts of reasons why they don’t want to do it.”
While you’d think that EMI shareholders, which have had to keep coughing up cash to prevent the company being re-possessed would be up in arms by this downright idiotic state of affairs, the label is side stepping the fact that millions of teenagers discover The Beatles every year and thousands are illegally downloading the band’s back catalogue at any given hour. Rather than give them the chance to legally buy high quality digital files, EMI bleated “Discussions are ongoing. We would love to see The Beatles’ music available for sale digitally.”
