Apple to sell Lennon's music at iTunes online store

Apple Inc. will sell 16 of the late John Lennon's solo albums from EMI Group Plc, including "Lennon Legend" and "Acoustic," through its iTunes online music store.

Videos of the Beatles co-founder will also be included with some albums for 30 days, Cupertino, California-based Apple said today in a statement. Lennon, who recorded songs including "Imagine" and "(Just Like) Starting Over" during his solo career, was shot to death in New York in 1980 at the age of 40.

Apple added the solo music of former Beatle Paul McCartney in May, and Beatle drummer Ringo Starr in June granted permission for digital sales of his recordings. McCartney told Billboard Magazine in May that a decision to sell the Beatles' music online was "virtually settled."

"John would have loved the fact that his music will now be available in a format suited to a new generation of listeners," his widow, Yoko Ono, said in the statement.

Apple in February ended a legal dispute with the Beatles over rights to use the "Apple" name and logos, concluding decades of litigation. Apple Corps Ltd., owned by McCartney, Starr, Ono and the estate of Beatle George Harrison, who died in 2001, had previously argued that it had the exclusive right to use the Apple logo in connection with music.

Shares of Apple fell $1.97, or 1.5 percent, to $125.82 at 11:42 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They had risen 51 percent this year before today.