Beatles online: For now

The entire Beatles back catalogue has appeared online in a proper download shop. Bluebeat are knocking the lot out for 25 cents a go.

Bluebeat. You surely have heard of them?

Wired is surprised, too:

The idea that the various stakeholders involved with the Beatles would license an unheard-of music store to sell the band’s music at such a steep discount seems highly unlikely. After being tipped off by MusicAlly (subscription required), we’re looking into this. So far, neither BlueBeat, BlueBeat’s “partner” BaseBeat or Media Rights Technologies, which actually owns both BlueBeat and BaseBeat, has responded. The company is located in Santa Cruz, California.

A spokeswoman for the Beatles’ label, Apple Corp, Ltd., told Wired.com she doesn’t think BlueBeat has any sort of permission to be doing this. EMI, which with Apple Corp distributes the band’s music, has yet to respond but we don’t imagine they’ll be too pleased about this either.

They're still there at the moment.

Could it be that there's soon to be a legitimate appearance of Beatles stuff across digital stores, and BlueBeat are already prepping a "oh, sorry, we stuck it all live far too soon" press release as the pay-off? Or has BlueBeat taken a stupidly audacious step to promote itself, figuring it can pay off Apple, say sorry, and enjoy the traffic surge?