Apple Corps, owned by the remaining members of The Beatles: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and the families of Lennon and Harrison, has finally resolved a decade plus legal fight with the EMI Group. The $59 million settlement over a loyalty dispute could finally pave the way for music downloaders to find the massive catalog of The Beatles hits online.

This settlement follows a similar resolution between Apple Computers (Apple Inc.) and Apple Corps over the “apple name/logo issue” back in February. If you missed that one Apple Corps was upset that Apple Computers was using the trademark of “Apple” in relation to music. Years ago Apple Inc. agreed to not get into the music industry in return for uncontested use of “Apple”. So when Apple Inc started selling millions of music downloads in relation to their iPod many would consider Apple Inc. to be doing just that. Apple Inc. protested they were just selling music not making/producing music. Either way, they worked it out. I’m sure lots of dollars were involved.

Considering The Beatles seem to have sold out every song they ever made for a few extra bucks I’m surprised they waited so long to get this resolved. Please note that as I typed that last sentence a commercial came on for Target with a Beatles song playing. Ohh, weird. Maybe now Paul McCartney will be able to pay off his gold digging ex-wife, Heather Mills.