Court orders Beatles songs to be taken off website

London-based record label EMI has won an injunction against music website BlueBeat.com which it said was selling Beatles songs without its permission.

A federal court in Los Angeles has issued a temporary restraining order against the site after EMI, the Beatles' record label, took legal action against it on Tuesday.

BlueBeat.com had been offering Beatles songs for 25 US cents each, around one quarter of what they typically cost on the dominant iTunes site.

Available before the injunction was an extensive list of Beatles albums, both original and the recently remastered versions, despite the fact that the band has yet to agree with music providers to release its cherished catalogue online.

"EMI did not authorise its content to be sold or made available on BlueBeat.com," the label said in a statement earlier this week.

In its defence, BlueBeat argued that it "sold entirely different sound recordings than that copyrighted" by EMI, saying that the "new" recordings were created through a process called "psycho-acoustic simulation."

The court will hear arguments from both sides in the case on November 20, according to court documents.