Pitchfork

One of rock'n'roll's longest-festering disputes vanished into thin air today, as it was announced that the world-conquering mega-corporations known as the Beatles and Apple Inc. have decided to give peace a chance and end their ongoing trademark battle.

You see, the Beatles' holding company is named Apple Corps Ltd., and has held that name, as well as its logo of a shiny green apple, for decades. In 1991, the band and the computer makers agreed to share the name, so long as the latter didn't enter the music business. The advent of iTunes and the iPod in this decade kind of mucked that up.

According to the Associated Press, today's settlement "gives Apple Inc. ownership of all the trademarks related to 'Apple.' In addition, Apple Inc. will license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use."

Eternally black turtleneck-clad Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future."

Naturally, talk has turned to the possibility of a Beatles-Apple Inc. partnership, with a deal for the band's music hitting the iTunes store rumored to be in the works. The Beatles are one of the last holdouts against the selling of legal downloads, forcing music fans to resort to all kinds of crate-digging, eBay price gouging, and dangerous underground bootlegging just to hear "Yesterday". Not.