Does the Beatles’ long, winding road end at iTunes?

We ’re still taste to enclose our brains around the repercussions of Monday ’s promulgation from EMI that it ’s going todrop digital - rights direction restrictionsfrom its medicine offering in May . We ’ve calculate it at from the linear perspective ofconsumers , other record labels , and eveniTunes competitors . Some of myMacworldcolleagues have even weighed in with analysis oftheir own .

But none of that answers the question that ’s on a deal of masses ’s mind : Just when will the Beatles be useable on iTunes ?

“ I want to be intimate that too , ” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during Monday ’s EMI press event .

Here ’s the desktop : Apple and Apple Corps , the Beatles ’ party , announced back in February that theysettled their long - standing differencesthat had culminated in a 2003 lawsuit that Apple — the computer manufacturing business , not the stone group ship’s company — ultimately win . It was thought that the February announcement would remove the way for the Beatles to shoot down on iTunes — and it was thought that such a stack might be harbinger Monday since EMI is the Beatles ’ record recording label .

But it did n’t happen . Here ’s how Eric Nicoli , chief operating officer of EMI Group , tackled the question when entreat by reporters : “ We are working on it and we hope it ’s soon . ”

Rather vague metre anatomy , that — soon . It ’s the same answer I give my wife whenever she asks how long before I ’m done playingDiamond Mind Baseballwith the assistance of Parallels Desktop on my MacBook Pro . Hopefully , Nicoli ’s “ shortly ” is sooner than that soon .

So I ’ll start the interrogative to the storey : How shortly is soon ? When do you reckon we ’ll see a DRM - free Fab Four — or any Fab Four for that matter — on iTunes ?