Cupertino, Calif. - Following a report over the weekend in the U.K.'s Telegraph that said Sir Paul McCartney had signed a $400 million deal with Apple (NASD: AAPL) to distribute the Beatles catalog on the iTunes Store, Apple has dismissed the claim as unsubstantiated speculation. "This is not news nor is it a scoop," an Apple spokesman told Billboard.

In May 2007, McCartney told Billboard that a deal with Apple for the Beatles' catalog was "virtually settled."

Then in June, the wife of late Beatle George Harrison confirmed that representatives for her husband and John Lennon, along with McCartney and Ringo Starr, had agreed that the catalog should be offered digitally.

These reports generally concluded that the Beatles' catalog would likely show up on iTunes sometime in 2008.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/21g28 (Telegraph)

http://snipurl.com/21g5s (Billboard)