Free Norwegian podcast series to feature complete Beatles catalog

Update (1/8/09)

A bit of commentary on this situation is in our Examiner.com column.
Update (1/7/09)

Lots of action in the Norway podcasts issue since our original post yesterday. We gave you a quick late update, but we thought we'd go through everything. First, Norwegian broadcaster NRK stopped the podcasts on their own and not as a result of any outside action. At least not yet. They issued a statement on their website explaining the " 'Our daily Beatles' podcasts were halted today because the shows, originally aired in 2007, aren't covered under their agreement with TONO, which limits broadcasts to only shows aired during the last four weeks." Additionally, the company said the podcasts were stopped until some legal issues could be clarified. "Due to terms still being under negotiation, our own lawyers have advised us to pull back the podcasts containing The Beatles music," a webpage statement said. (Also see this Examiner.com column, the one linked below and this UK Mirror report.) They further explained, "The Beatles comes under our agreement with IFPI, which says that we only can put up shows for download that were aired the latest four weeks, and where the music is less than 70% of the show’s length. 'Our daily Beatles' were aired in 2007 (not 2001 as we wrote yesterday), so we have to pull the podcast. If it was aired today, we could have podcasted the next four weeks within the agreement." NRK is currently negotiating a new agreement iwth IFPI. The previous one expired on New Year's Eve.

Apple Corps issued a short, terse statement:

"It has recently been reported that a Norwegian broadcasting company, NRK, will make Beatles music available for download via a series of podcasts. These podcasts are not authorized by Apple Corps Ltd."

Roger Stormo of WogBlog sent us the first podcast with "Love Me Do." Basically, it's like you'd expect. No English, just Norwegian, except for the song itself, which is at the end of the segment we received and is uninterrupted. And given what the first podcast sounded like, we'll repeat what we said previously: Don't equate these with the Beatles catalog being on iTunes. The podcasts are not remastered, and in fact, are low quality.

Update II (1/6/09)

Two breaking developments: The podcasts have been halted and Apple Corps has issued a statement. For more information, see our column on Examiner.com.

(1/6/2009) A Norwegian broadcaster has announced an agreement to begin offering podcasts with the entire Beatles catalog for free, CNET reported Monday.

Sound like an early April Fool's joke?

You're right. We didn't believe it either.

But for now, Norway's NRK say it intends to present the entire Beatle catalog in podcast downloads.

The series is called “Vår daglige Beatles” (“Our Daily Beatles”) and available from this link. The podcats are in Norwegian and were first aired in 2007, but without music. The revised versions of the podcast, which must contain no more than 70% music, according to the agreement with Norwegian music distributor TONO, will includes music in the three-minute podcasts.

Roger Stormo of WogBlog says 14 songs are up so far.

You can read an analysis of this complicated situation here.

In an Examiner.com column, we look at the possible situation this creates.

Our Examiner.com Beatle news roundup from early Monday that first mentioned the announcement.

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