Sir Paul McCartney has revealed the deal to make the Beatles back-catalogue available on-line is �virtually settled�.

The Fab Four�s music has never been available to download, but, according to McCartney, the much-mooted new deal between Apple Corp, iTunes and EMI is almost ready to get The Beatles online.

He tells Billboard, �I don't want to pre-empt anything, but we're well on the way to something happening there, which is very exciting."

Not least because Sir Paul is set to make up to �200 million from the deal.