EXCLUSIVE: Norwegian Beatles podcasts halted; Beatles' Apple Corps issues statement

January 6, 6:02 AMBeatles ExaminerSteve Marinucci

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  The Beatles' Apple Corps issued a terse statement today
   regarding the Norwegian podcasts, which have been halted.
   No word of further action was available. (Photo courtesy
   Apple Corps.)

  The Norwegian Beatle podcasts by NRK (Norway Broadcast Co.), that we wrote about here and here yesterday and which were to feature the entire Beatles catalog in free downloads, have been halted.

The company issued a short, terse statement in English on their website that reads: "The podcast is not available at the moment. Please check back for updates." NRK also formally posted a website page (in Norwegian) announcing the halting of the podcasts. The headline on the page reads "Podkasten stoppes," which is fairly easy to translate.

The podcast series was announced on Monday.

Roger Stormo of WogBlog in Norway says in his latest post that two albums, "Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles" were made available before the podcasts were stopped. "The Norwegian podcasts featuring original Beatles tracks were stopped today, after only two albums ('Please Please Me' and 'With The Beatles') had been made available. The explanation given is that 'NRK can not podcast programs with foreign music if the radio program was broadcast more than four weeks ago.'"

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Beatles' Apple Corps sent us this exclusive statement:

STATEMENT REGARDING NRK PODCASTS OF BEATLES MUSIC

It has recently been reported that a Norwegian broadcasting company, NRK, will make Beatles music available for download via a series of podcasts.  These podcasts are not authorized by Apple Corps Ltd.

Stay tuned. It wouldn't be surprising if there were further developments in this story and soon. We'll have them here.

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