Speculation has been rife, that's right, rife, over the weekend following news that Apple chief Steve Jobs and EMI Group boss Eric Nicoli will be announcing an "exciting new digital offering" at an event at EMI's London HQ today at 1pm. Invites to the press conference promise a special live performance from an unconfirmed artist.
Most of the speculation has been that this will be the long awaited announcement that the Beatles catalogue will finally be available digitally via legitimate download platforms for the first time. The Beatles were signed, of course, to EMI label Parlophone.
As much previously reported, The Beatles are one of the very few remaining artists whose catalogue is not currently available from legitimate download services, but its arrival has been expected for a while following implications from Neil Aspinall, the manager of the Beatles' own company, Apple Corps, that work was underway to remaster the band's music ready for a digital release. Speculation that the digital catalogue would premiere on iTunes has been growing ever since the two Apple companies settled their long running trademark dispute in February, after which Aspinall said he looked forward to "many years of peaceful co-operation" with the computer firm.
That said, both Apple and EMI are being tight lipped on exactly what today's announcement will be, and some Mac based websites are speculating that the big news might be that EMI are planning on making their catalogue (or some of it) available via iTunes without DRM - rumours that come after Apple boss Steve Jobs recently called on the majors to lose their obsession with digital rights management technology, and following reports EMI execs were in serious talks about making their music available without such technology.
All will presumably become clear at one.