Beatles available on iTunes, world doesn't change

I'm baffled that people are baffled. The biggest news on the net this morning is that the Beatles are now available via iTunes. I can see this is big music business news. The Beatles are the biggest, most famous band ever. And for years, they've been reluctant to make their music available on iTunes. Now they finally have.

But apart from the pocketbooks of Paul, Ringo, Olivia and Yoko, EMI and the two Apples, what difference does it make to anyone really?

Yes, you can now visit iTunes, pay a couple bucks and download any Beatles song. But I already have all the Beatles songs on my iPod. They were the first things I loaded on. I just plunked my CDs in my computer, ripped them at Apple Lossless into iTunes and synched my iPod. Bang. Dead easy.

It's not like we haven't been able to hear the Beatles digitally or anything up until now.  Before I bought my iPod, I had a Creative brand MP3 player and listened to the Beatles on it for years.

So, I guess now people who don't own the Beatles CDs and who haven't already borrowed and ripped their friends' CDs can now go to iTunes and download the tunes.

That's the difference between today and yesterday.

Or maybe not. Maybe the reason that this seems exciting on some level is this great music, groundbreaking in its time, is now available -- directly and legitimately -- on this newest of musical platforms, and that, we hope, it will bring a whole new audience that same joy it's brought to all of us.

People like to share the experience of music, and I think it's this element that makes this development Big News.  A whole lot more people are likely to be hearing Beatles music. And that's a good thing.

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