McCartney 'wants Beatles songs as downloads'

Sir Paul McCartney has declared that he wants The Beatles' songs to be made available for download.

The iconic band's work has been continually absent from official download services, but McCartney said that he is keen for the group's back catalogue to be accessible online.

"We were having problems with iTunes – well not iTunes, EMI was the problem – with downloading, which we'd like to do because that's how a lot of people get their music," McCartney told NME.

However, the 67-year-old suggested that the group have managed to get around the problem with video game The Beatles: Rock Band, which is released tomorrow.

"We've kind of bypassed that [download problem] because now you can do it in Rock Band," he said. "I always liked that, when you're told you can't do something and suddenly there's a little route round the back."

McCartney added: "I haven't tried [the game]. When you go to a demo they play it and I go, 'God, that looks hard!'"