The Beatles’ back catalogue to be up for streaming

“Happy Crimble (Christmas), with love from us to you”, the announcement on the band’s website read.

“The Beatles” music is to be made available on a range of streaming music services ahead of Christmas.

The best thing about the news that The Beatles are now available to stream is that millions of teenagers around the world are now curiously tapping on Please Please Me, Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper’s. I download it, and I buy a physical [copy] just to make up for the fact that someone else somewhere isn’t.

Their arrival on streaming services comes as consumption on those platforms starts to overtake digital downloads as a source of income for the music industry.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr split in 1970 but the band are still hugely popular. With consumers increasingly opting to stream music rather than purchase, other best-selling bands such as Led Zeppelin have gradually signed on in a bid to broaden their fan base.

The Beatles’ digital entry could also have the opposite effect, possibly introducing an older audience to streaming music for the first time, said Scott Register, a radio host on Birmingham Mountain Radio, an independent music radio station in Alabama.

Streaming services have been involved in legal spats with the music industry and broadcasters – songs recorded before 1972 are not covered by United States federal copyright laws, but bands and recording labels have been seeking protection and royalties under state laws.

Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal are among nine services that will offer the tracks worldwide.

The Beatles’ remastered studio albums and collections will be available at 12:01 a.m. Thursday in each country’s time zone, the company’s label said. Several major class rock bands, including AC/DC and Pink Floyd, also resisted streaming until the past few years.

But now The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” will be streamed. Their recordings weren’t available on Apple’s iTunes until 2010, making the Beatles one of the last passengers aboard that ship as well.

The Beatles have arrived very late to the streaming party.

“You really have to be Rihanna or somebody like that in order to actually see a check of any significant worth”, Murphy continued. That record is now available on Apple Music.