Get all the Beatles tracks for free - and it's legal

Extraordinary story out there that Beatles fans can finally - legally - get their hands on the Fab Four's back catalogue, thanks to a Norwegian website.

I can't imagine that the lawyers will allow it to continue but Norwegian broadcasting company NRK is releasing a podcast that tells the story behind each Beatles song, followed by the actual tune - all 212 of them.

Apparently a deal between NRK and Norwegian organization TONO, which owns the music rights, allows NRK to publish the podcast which goes through the entire catalogue, including a three-minute story-behind-the-song - in Norweigan - for each track. NRK's website says it has a deal to publish previously broadcast radio and TV programs that contain less than 70 per cent music.

Now people who know more about these things than I do say it is possible to isolate the music from the speech easily enough and hey presto, you have the holy grail of digital tunes in your music collection.

You can go to the English language page of the NRK website which gives you the chance to download the tracks as they become available this month. The first 14 are downloadable now.

Story via VentureBeat and Ars Technica.

UPDATE: NRK say: "Due to terms still being under negotiation, our own lawyers have advised us to pull back the podcasts containing The Beatles music"

Comments

[Alex]

I'd rather pay and not have to wade through hours of Norwegian that I don't understand.

[polly]

Seems like they didn't allow it for long. The website is comming up as an error.

[Paul]

Or you could just buy decent quality versions from various russian websites? For about 10 USC per track. Been avaialble for ages. So what's the big deal?

[Nick]

Hey,
I've tried out the link but don't seem to be able to download the podcast. Is anyone else having similar problems? Does anyone have any advice?

[Hol]

The digital market's missing out - in the mean time people will have just found friends with Beatles CDs and ripped the tracks from them

[Omar Days]

Or, just buy the CD's which everyone has anyway & rip 'em to mp3!

[Geoff]

Just downloaded first 28 and stripped out Norwegian commentary. Whole job took 2 hours - Great!

[Rog]

The service has been taken down because of course they didn't have the rights.

[Daniel I]

Or you could just BitTorrent the lot in one go, it would be a whole lot easier, and still free. Rather than 2 hours for 28 tracks! Or god forbid buying the CD's and ripping them. Or buying them from a russian gangster.

[Colin Lusk]

Just downloaded all the beatles albums from a bit torrent web site and didn't need to strip out any Norwegian commentary. 320 kbps mp3. Whole job took one hour - Great!

[shaun]

Why would anyone want the entire beatles collection. They're massively over-rated, most are no more than 60s pop-songs. I think you'd have to be a real nerd to want to have EVERY ONE of the a band's songs....especially when there's so much better music out there.

Oh well, there's nowt as queer as folk...as some bloke used to say.

[James]

Downloading music from the Russian site for 10 cents is still illegal (http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2005/02/22/russian-10-cent-music-download-site-targeted-by-authorities). What's more you've just handed over your credit card details to a very dodgy syndicate – Try and remember that if something's too go to be true - it usually is…

[Craig]

or just get them from OiNK.cd

oh no wait, the government shut that down because it was a search engine.

"This guys website uses the same system as Google.. lets take him down for 'conspiracy to defraud'!"

..but nobody seems to mind.

[David Weedall]

If you go to that site now you'll find their lawyers have advised them to pull the tracks - so they have! You don't often get something for nothing in this life!