Apple Dismiss Reports Beatles Back Catalogue Will Hit iTunes

Apple Inc. have dismissed claims that The Beatles entire back-catalogue will be made available on its iTunes music store “within months”.

An unnamed ‘source’, thought to be close to Sir Paul McCartney, claimed last Friday (March 7th) that permission had been granted for the songs to be released as legal downloads for the first time.

However, in a statement issued to Billboard, a spokesperson for Apple declined to comment, saying: "This is not news nor is it a scoop.”

The Beatles are one of the few remaining acts yet to release hits from their song library as digital downloads.

It was thought that the band’s songs would be digitalised in February 2007 following a deal between Apple Inc. and Apple Corps, the group’s record label.