The liner notes for the initial release falsely implied that the recordings had been made in the spring of 1962, prior to the Beatles' EMI contract, on a night when Ringo Starr happened to be sitting in for Pete Best. In commentary for a lawsuit to block the album's release, John Lennon wrote, "the sleeve note, apart from being inaccurate, seems to have been written with a court case in mind." The Beatles lost their case, so the album was viewed as a legitimate release. The thirty songs contained on the initial releases were re-licensed over the following two decades to multiple record labels, most notably Sony Music, which packaged the songs in CD form in 1991 (although the product was withdrawn the following year as legal action was pending from the Beatles). After another lawsuit by the Beatles, Lingasong agreed in 1998 to hand over the original tapes and stop all sales.