You Can Now Stream The Beatles' Catalogue Online

In news that should warm even the Scroogiest of hearts, legendary UK outfit The Beatles have, as of midnight today, 24 December, made their music available for streaming worldwide on pretty much all the major streaming services.

It's a move currently taking effect around the planet as people wake up to Christmas Eve, with The Beatles' tunes hitting services Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, Tidal, Deezer, Microsoft Groove, Amazon Prime, Rhapsody and Slacker at 12.01am local time on 24 December. At the time of writing, only North and South America, and the western tip of Africa, are yet to get their early present (there's a cool interactive live atlas showing which parts of the world are able to stream already at The Beatles' website).

As Rolling Stone notes, at a time when contemporary mega-artists such as Taylor Swift and Adele have publicly resisted - or outright blocked - the streaming of their music, the arrival of 13 Beatles albums on the medium's various platforms is, as Slacker Radio senior vice-president Jack Isquith told the mag, "a giant validation of streaming".

"How do you look at this from a business perspective and say the other ups and downs over streaming — the Taylor Swift stuff, the Adele stuff — don't wind up as footnotes in history once you have these 13 albums right down the middle?" he said. "This is an acknowledgment that streaming isn't just the future; it's the present."

Merry Crimble to all, and to all a good hard day's night.