Beatles fans are fuming about the latest use of a Fab Four song, All You Need is Love, in a diaper commercial.

In a campaign launched this month, Procter & Gamble featured a commercial with the song to introduce its Luvs' Bear Hug Stretch line of disposable diapers with "premium leakage protection."

The Beatles, as seen in this promotional photo from the 1960s, featured All You Need is Love in their 1967 album, Magical Mystery Tour.
(Canadian Press)

Internet chat sites and radio stations have been inundated with outraged Beatles fans who feel the product has cheapened the legacy of the band.

"I cannot see a Beatles song being used for trial things … not Beatles songs!!!" posted Andy Bonnell from Liverpool, England — home of the Fab Four.

"'All you need is Luvs?' pleeeeease," wrote "instant Karla" on the beatlelinks.net's "fab forum" discussion group.

Radio DJ Cha-Chi Loprete, of WZLX in Boston, says Beatles songs, mostly written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, are "works of art" which changed and influenced generations.

"For me, it corrupts and contaminates the memories I have," said Loprete, who has been hosting a Breakfast with The Beatles show for two decades.  "John Lennon must be rolling over in his grave."

Used as an antiwar song

The song has a special history. It was first performed by the band in its first ever live global television event. The program, broadcast via satellite on June 25, 1967, was watched by 350 million people.  All You Need is Love was featured on the Beatle's Magical Mystery Tour album released the same year.

Some fans also point out the song was popular during the counterculture years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and among anti-Vietnam War opponents who used it as a call to peace.

Unfortunately for Beatles fans, the surviving members and relatives do not hold publishing rights. Sony/ATV Music Publishing — a joint venture of Sony Corp. and singer Michael Jackson — have that right. The company doesn't need permission to license the songs in its Beatles catalogue.

In fact, Beatles songs have already been used in the past to sell products. A version of Help! was used in a 1985 car ad, while a 2002 cover of When I'm Sixty-Four was flogged in a commercial for Allstate Insurance. And Target stores in the U.S. have used Hello Goodbye.

For its part, Procter & Gamble says it has honoured the music.

"Music has a way of connecting us and making us smile," said spokesperson Lisa Jester.

Jester says the commercial, showing a diaper-clad toddler wrestling with a stuffed bear as his family watches, registered high with parents.

Some fans say they are resigned to the commercialization of Beatles music.

"I'm less offended now," admits Charles Rosenay, an American who organizes pilgrimages to Liverpool under the banner, Magical History Tours.

Rosenay says those kind of ads introduce new generations to the band's legacy.

"It has a positive effect."

With files from the Associated Press