Apple, Inc.’s legal department reached in February an agreement with the Beatles’ record label Apple Corps Ltd. It frees Apple Inc. to load music onto its products. It could have an interesting effect on how iPods are sold (or possibly even Macs or AppleTV).

The old agreement (at Sections 1.3 and 4.3) seemingly prevented Apple from selling music on physical media, such as CDs, even though it could sell music through the iTunes Store. On paper, this seemed like a simple limitation: Apple could sell music-playing hardware like iPods, but it couldn’t sell you the discs full of music to play on the iPod.

Apple’s iTunes Store - the subject of the 2003 lawsuit - successfully stepped around this limitation by using the Internet to distribute music, but it left Apple with two major limitations: Apple couldn’t pre-install music on iPods, or otherwise sell it on any physical medium, such as discs. This was one of the reasons that the prior U2 Special Edition iPods didn’t actually include U2’s music - Apple’s contract with The Beatles forced you to buy it separately online.

This would be a big boost to very specific, niche iPod sales outlets like airport iPod vending machines. Can you imagine being able to get an iPod at airport terminal loaded with Celine Dion, saving you the trouble of ripping your vast Dion collection while trying to pack?