Apple and Apple Make Nice

Apple Computers and the Beatles -- who originally gave Apple the right to use that name as long as they stayed out of the music business -- settled their lawsuits today. I always thought the Beatles had an open and shut case, but one judge ruled that iTunes -- the online music store that accounts for a good 5% of the music industry sales -- somehow doesn't mean Apple Computers is in the music biz. Now the Beatles and Apple just walked away from their lawsuits and will each pay off their own lawyers. Apple now owns ALL the rights to the name and will license them back to the Beatles for their mostly moribund record label. Bizarre, since the Beatles and Apple were around long before Apple Computers. Apple of course used a Beatles song to introduce the iPhone. And apparently the rumor is that newly remastered Beatles songs will be sold as downloads soon (we were supposed to see an ad on the Super Bowl, but didn't) followed by (finally) new CD remasterings of their classic albums, the first time they've been cleaned up since coming out 20 years ago.