Beatles songs available to download

The Beatles' back catalogue is available to download legally for the first time, thanks to a collection of Norwegian podcasts.

The band were the subject of Norwegian radio documentary series Our Daily Beatles in 2001, in which journalists discussed the stories behind each track in their official catalogue.

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK has now signed a deal with music rights holder TONO to allow publication of the broadcasts through podcasts. The downloads have been made available because the deal allows podcasts which contain less than 70% music to be freely accessible online for four weeks.

Each of the 212 episodes will feature around three minutes of discussion in Norwegian followed by a song. The first 14 podcasts are available now, with the remaining 198 expected before the end of January.

The podcasts are the first time that any Beatles songs have been available as a legal download. Last year, plans to release the group's back catalogue were halted by a reported dispute between their record label Apple and copyright holder EMI.