George Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison has said that The Beatles' catalogue may be available for digital download by the end of the year.
Mrs Harrison told the Reuters news agency, "We just have a few things to work out elsewhere." When asked if the catalogue would be available by the end of 2008, she said, "Oh God, yeah. Hope so ... I don't know if it would be the end of this year, but it would be nice. Imminent, let's put it that way."A settlement between EMI and The Beatles' Apple Corps publishing company in April paved the way for the digital release of the band's catalogue.
Harrison also said that the digitally remastered CD versions of Beatles albums are on the way, noting that it was "ridiculous" that they still weren't available.
Digital music pioneer and former EMI executive Tony Cohen recently told Undercover, "The future of the legal online world doesn't hinge on The Beatles being available. But I think it's a good thing, it removes one more barrier to providing a complete catalogue available on servers. It won't be all done just because the Beatles are available, but hopefully we'll be there pretty soon."
