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LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) - Apple Computer is not liable for trademark infringement against Apple Corps, the music company owned by the Beatles, a judge in London's High Court ruled on Monday. Apple Corps, owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison, argued the computer company has violated a 1991 trademark agreement by moving into the music business through its market-leading iTunes online store. Apple Computer argued in court hearings in London earlier this year that iTunes was primarily a data transmission service, permitted by the agreement. The 1991 out-of-court...

CHICAGO, April 12 (UPI) -- George Harrison, after leaving The Beatles, wrote a song called the "Sue Me, Sue You, Blues" for his album, "Living in the Material World." "Hold the block on the money flow. Move it into joint escrow," wrote Harrison. "Court receiver, laughs and thrills. But in the end we just pay those lawyers their bills." Perhaps that tune would be an appropriate sound track for the legal drama unfolding in a London courtroom now? The Beatles' company, Apple Corps Ltd., is suing Apple Computer, Inc., claiming that the latter's iTunes.com music service violates a contract, experts...

N.L. premier, ex-Beatle to spar on seal-hunt on Larry KingCBC News March 3, 2006 The premier of Newfoundland and Labrador will be on Larry King Live on Friday night to oppose the anti-seal-hunt views of rock legend Paul McCartney. Danny Williams's appearance on the CNN talk show was to be taped in advance. He was to defend the hunt, which McCartney and his wife, Heather, have been protesting this week during a visit to Prince Edward Island. McCartney, who visited seal pups in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, claimed Thursday that 95 per cent of the seals killed in Canada...

IT'S no secret that Paul McCartney and John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono are not good friends. The pair have been rowing on and off since they first met when McCartney's fellow Beatle fell for Ono in the late 1960s. But in recent weeks their failure to reach common ground has escalated, with a string of veiled - and not so veiled - swipes from both camps. Last month, when McCartney played at Madison Square Garden, he included Too Many People, a song which reportedly contains a sour message for Ono. The track - which was written by Macca in 1971...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Imagine this: a talking John Lennon doll. The Web site for the National Entertainment Collectibles Association (http://www.necaonline.com) has unveiled pictures of a new John Lennon action figure that is expected to arrive in stores in the spring. The 18-inch doll, dubbed "The New York Years" John Lennon, will utter "authentic" phrases used by Lennon, according to the Web site. A spokesman for Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, could not be reached for comment, nor could officials for National Entertainment Collectibles. As a solo artist, Lennon wrote songs like "Imagine," which asked listeners to consider a world with...

The Cuban President, Fidel Castro, has paid homage to John Lennon at the unveiling of a statue of the late pop singer in Havana. The ceremony in the Cuban capital's El Vedado Park coincided with the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder in New York. President Castro praised Lennon as a revolutionary, whose thinking and ideas made him great. In the 1960s, when Lennon's band The Beatles topped the charts throughout the world, the Cuban authorities denounced their music as decadent. But an official statement said recently declassified US documents showed how Lennon had suffered for his opposition to the...

First came Paul vs. John, which begat Dirk vs. Nasty, which begat Eric vs. Neil. Monty Python member Eric Idle and comedic songwriter Neil Innes were the close friends and collaborators who created the Rutles three decades ago as a parody of the Beatles -- a very popular band, you may recall, whose bitter breakup left close friends/collaborators Paul McCartney and John Lennon at each others' throats. In the wake of the recently released straight-to-DVD "The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch," Idle, who plays McCartney stand-in Dirk McQuickly, and Innes, who plays Lennon stand-in Ron Nasty and wrote the...

A roll of toilet paper that was criticised by the Beatles is up for auction on Ebay. The snubbed toilet roll was not received with appreciation by the members of the band, who noted with disgust that it was "too hard and shiny". Despite it giving them something to read during their visit to the toilet, they were also unimpressed with the fact that each sheet had "EMI LTD" stamped on it. The toilet paper, which once sat in an Abbey Road lavatory, has been kept in a glass box since being auctioned at a 1980 Abbey Road sale, reports...

Greg Hassall and Charles Purcell do battle over the fab four. FOR OK, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da is the most annoying song ever written. And you won't find Revolution No 9 on too many iPods. But how many bands' dud tracks can you count on one hand? The Beatles deserve their place in the pop pantheon. They revolutionised the way pop music was written, recorded and talked about. They were funny, charismatic, hungry to learn and unafraid of controversy. They matured spectacularly over seven tumultuous years, then quit on a high note with the peerless Abbey Road. They were a genuine band,...

Lennon, the new musical about John Lennon's life set to open next August, will have two unpublished songs that Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, has given to Don Scardino, writer and director of the production. The songs, India, India and I Don't Want to Lose You, exist only on private recordings that Lennon made in his last years. I Don't Want to Lose You, a slow, introspective ballad, was one of three songs Ono gave to the surviving Beatles when they reunited in the early 1990s to complete a few Lennon songs for The Beatles Anthology. An electronic hum in the...

CHARTED: Yoko Ono, 71, has the No. 1 single on the dance chart, "Every Man Has A Man Who Loves Him"/"Every Woman Has A Woman Who Loves Her," a mix of techno beats and her somewhat off-key vocals that delivers a message in favor of same-sex unions. "This is a victory not just for me but for all Americans who are against the administration's decision to ban gay marriage," Ono says about the success of the tune, as quoted by the BBC.

Brian and Melinda Wilson will the sole guests on the Larry King show on Friday, August 20. Perhaps the most extensive interview of his career, transcripts of the show will also be made available online for those unable to access CNN.

AT THE very height of Beatlemania, the Fab Four played to an astonishing 500,000 people during a 1964 whirlwind tour of the US. Today, 40 years on, Sir Paul McCartney will be seen by more than 700,000 fans in a 13-date European tour. Not bad for a man who turns 62 this month. But even though he is in numerical terms a bigger draw than the Beatles ever were, he is not about to play down the debt he owes to his years in the biggest pop group of all time. In his most revealing interview ever, McCartney has talked...

McCartney speaks out against war Sir Paul wrote a song, Freedom, after the 11 September attacks Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has criticised the UK government for being too hasty in going to war in Iraq. "Maybe our government went in too fast with the Americans," he told the weekly Portuguese magazine Visao on Thursday. "It would have been better if the UN had been together," the 61-year-old singer continued. "Now it's become very bloody with Iraq, it's very difficult." The singer, who is currently touring Europe, opens the Rock in Rio music festival in Lisbon on Friday. Sir Paul...

<p>Gloria Bailey and Linda Davies laugh when they recall singing the Beatles’ “When I’m 64” to one another when they fell in love as closeted social workers in Massachusetts.</p> <p>Looking back, they say their younger selves could never have imagined they’d one day be openly gay, let alone one of the seven high-profile couples who persuaded Massachusetts’ top court to rule they can marry beginning May 17.</p>

Beatlemania!40 years ago today, the Beatles changed America foreverBy David Fricke Cover photo by John Dominis Shortly after 8 p.m. on Sunday, February 9th, 1964, a short, stiff man with rubbery bloodhound features -- Ed Sullivan, the host of the highest-rated variety hour on American television -- addressed his New York studio audience and the folks tuned in at home over the CBS network. "Yesterday and today, our theater's been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation," Sullivan said in a nasally chuckling voice. "And these veterans agreed with me that the city never...

The record album signed by John Lennon for Mark David Chapman just hours before Chapman fatally shot him is being sold online.

<p>YOKO Ono still knows how to get a man to take his clothes off. Peter Jennings was interviewing Ono at last week's ArtWalk event for the Coalition for the Homeless when she somehow talked the news anchor into getting inside a giant black bag with her in front of 500 people at Cooper Union's Great Hall. A few moments later, both emerged with Jennings struggling to put his shirt back on and Ono's own garb disheveled. While no one's quite sure what happened in the bag, everyone was craning their necks to get a glimpse of Jennings bare-chested - including his wife, Kayce Freed, seated in the front row with her mother.</p>

Hi all. I have just read the most amazing political novel. It's called The American Beatles, and it's by a kid named Jon Bell at N.C. State. It's about what might happen if the Beatles existed today, in America: but it's also a ruthless and hilarious critique of the modern media and the American right-wing community. It's a damn good book. You can read it online in e-book form at BeatlesNovel.com.

Beatles Strip 'Let It Be' for 'Naked' Release The surviving members of rock legends The Beatles are releasing a new version of their last ever album, "Let It Be" - with a different name. Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have spent months working on the album, which includes classics "Long and Winding Road" and "Get Back" - and are promising an entirely new sound for fans. The pair have stripped back the Wall Of Sound effect put on the LP by producer Phil Spector, so just the Fab Four themselves can be heard. The new release - called "Let...