As much as I dislike linking to an article on Foxnews.com, it’s only fair when they come up with a good iTunes scoop. Reporter Roger Friedman claims Apple Corps executive Neil Aspinall confirmed to him that the Beatles core catalog has been remastered and is ready to release via online music stores.

“All 13 core albums, the ones originally released on CD in 1987, have been remastered,” Aspinall told me. “At some point they will all be released, probably at the same time.”

Aspinal goes on to say that no one online music store will have an exclusive deal to distribute the Beatles collection.

…Aspinall says that when the Beatles songs do get put on the Internet officially, “it will be on all the services, not just one.” So all the Beatles songs will be found on iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.

This comment conflicts with the rumor that Apple plans to release a special “Beatles edition” iPod in conjunction with an exclusive deal with the iTunes Store… but Steve Jobs is such a big Beatles fan, I guess anything is still possible.

No real word on the digital release of Beatles movies, other than to say Let It Be continues to be problematic, and there’s no sign of even a DVD on the horizon.

“The film was so controversial when it first came out. When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: This stuff is still controversial. It raised a lot of old issues.”

Which I take to be code for “Yoko still doesn’t like the way she’s portrayed in the film and will never let it be re-released.” Let’s hope that when Sean’s in charge of the estate, he’ll have a different view on the subject.

Could the timing of these statements mean the Beatles will show up on iTunes tomorrow? Could there be any better Valentine’s Day download than, say, the Love soundtrack from the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show? I guess we’ll know soon enough.

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