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xtunes Forced to Change Name, Appearance by Apple Lawyers
A user writes, "xTunes was an Open Source project that replicated much of the interface, functionality, and ease of use of iTunes. Apple's army of lawyers has forced them to change their name and redesign the interface." The new name of the project is sumi.
Hell, even their 'witty' name is ripping off the name Apple Computer came up with for a system sound after predicting a lawsuit from Apple Records.
These guys at from the app-formerly-known-as-xtunes project need to learn a thing or two about originality!
See, several years ago, Apple used Sagan as a codename for one of their prototype systems, after the well-known astronomer Carl Sagan. After they got sued for using the namee without his permission, engineers started calling their prototype BHA instead -- as in, "Butt Head Astronomer". :-)
I like the way the Sumi people are tweaking Apple back now... :-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
"Of course, I wonder when Apple will send a letter to Microsoft demanding they stop production fo Windows?"
Windows is why Apple use lawyers on anything that is copying the "look and feel" of their operating system or applications.
Windows has taught Apple not to let anything that is ripping them off get a chance to take off. Like it or not, Apple will go after anything taking ideas from them, and the Windows lawsuit (which they settled with Microsoft out of court as an undisclosed sum, at the same time the $120m non-voting stock/IE default/Office port things happened) is why.
This isn't entirely correct. Yes, iTunes is Apple's product, and I don't doubt that they've put a good deal of work into it. However, the foundation isn't theirs, they just bought it off the people that developed the MP3 player SoundJam. I can't find a link with the details at the moment, but this will do for now:
Ahh, of couse, also see SoundJam.com:
Anyway, I thought there may have been a Windows version of SoundJam, but at the moment I'm not turning anything up, Mac or otherwise....
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
IMO that doesn't stop it from being funny... :-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Too many people are under the impression that implementing a clone is not an infringement of Copyright. Mistake. Copyright doesn't just cover a work, it covers derivative works too. Take the functionality and interface, and you're creating a derivative.
I haven't used either product, so I'm not going to state that they are similar. Clearly Apple thinks so, and a number of users on this and other forums think so as well. The developer's response also makes it clear they were out to achieve the same ease of use - which often comes down to interface design (functionality wise, not necessarily look and feel).
Software design, much like the plot of a book, is protected by Copyright. Interface design, much like the cover of a book, is too. Create a new plot or cover art from scratch, which is different to the original but uses conceptual elements from it, is not a violation of Copyright. It can be a fine line at times.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Watson should immediately sue Apple, for "look-and-feel" violations regarding the new Sherlock.
The outrage here is not that Apple did this in the first place. That's to be expected; Apple makes its fortunes with look-and-feel, and of course it will sue anyone who tries to take that away. But when Apple does the opposite... why does no one call them on it?
WATSON SHOULD SUE MAC COZ THEY RIPPED EM OFF!!!!1
Look, the company is called Karelia, not 'Watson'.
Yes, Apple almost certanly took a whole lot of ideas for Sherlock 3 from Watson, however Watson also was inspired by Sherlock 2.
Besides, Karelia may get their own back: they are pondering a Windows port.
I think all their wit is perfectly intact.
My point is that the app-formerly-known-as-xtunes people couldn't even think up a good name themselves, and instead stole a decade-old jab at Apple Records.
It's not even their wit! They stole it from the company they're trying to use it against!
I can cope with Apple being a bit miffed about someone cloning their interface, but complaining about the name "xtunes" seems a bit rich coming from the company that called used exactly the same symbol (although not name) for their operating system as a popular and well established window system - X.
They also seem to be in a habit of calling their products after popular Unix programs that have been around for years - consider "Xserve" only only one letter short of "Xserver", and "eMac" is only one letter short of "emacs". Maybe their next product will be called "gre", "Linu" or "Mozill".
From someone who remembers when ical was a Tk/Tcl application.
#exclude <ms/windows.h>
closer observation reveals sumi sounds alot like "sue me", I think all their wit is perfectly intact.
The poster realizes that. That's why he noted their name was "witty".
He was pointing out that name and the "wit" that inspired it was an imitation of Apples system sound sosumi (So sue me) that was Apples jab at Apple Records which sued them over the name "apple" but their suit failed because at the time Apple computers couldn't (or couldn't very well) record music. When Apple added that ability they also added the "so sue me" sound.
Sorry, wrong lawsuit. You are thinking of the patent infringement lawsuit over windows 95 (and quicktime code? I forget and can't be bothered - google for it yourself if you are interested). The "look and feel" lawsuit was in the 80's and was over windows 3.1 stealing the Mac "look and feel" (a lot vaguer than the later patent infringement suit you are thinking of) and it DID go to court and Apple lost.
After they got sued for using the name
;)
It was more than just using his name without permission. All the code names for that generation of computers were named for scientific hoaxes: Cold Fusion, Piltdown Man, and Sagan. Something of a slight of Sagan's work
As you mentioned when Sagan sued they changed the name to BHA (Butt Head Astronomer) and when he sued yet again the changed the name to LAW (Lawyers Are Wimps)
Unfortunately xTunes/sumi is not all that witty because it is just as unoriginal as Apple is claiming their product is. Apple has a system sound named Sosumi (So sue me) to tweak Apple Records of Beatles fame which had sued them over the name "Apple". Apple won the suit because at the time you couldn't do sound recording on an Apple computer. When Apple included that ability they included the sound Sosumi. It seems to me a decent part of wit is originality. The xTunes folks are coming across as the bore at a party which finds the same old joke hilarious every time he repeats it.
It sounds like they got a simple cease-and-desist saying "It seem like a lot of what you have is derived from our product and we'd like you to make changes." They agreed and made changes. It's not like they defended the thing in court and lost. Apple may have been the bully, but these guys are the ones who just gave them their lunch money instead of making them fight for it.
According to Think Secret, Apple's head of MacOS X software development admitted that they were already in the midst of developing Sherlock 3 when Watson was first released. Given that Apple didn't want to throw away the money they had already invested in Sherlock 3, and didn't want to spend more money licensing Watson, they didn't have much choice other than to continue working on S3 and ignoring Watson.
Despite what Karelia would like to believe, Apple didn't "rip them off"; Watson just happened to be following a path Apple was already taking. And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
1) Call your product Sumi ...
2)
3) Profit!
Or more like: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Sumis!
Or like: All your Sumi are belong to us.
Or: WhazzzSumi!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
There is no x86 port of iTunes.
The Windows iPod is just a driver to allow Musicmatch to work with it, and changes to the firmware to allow it to read/write a FAT32 disk.
iTunes is still only on the mac. I doubt it would ever be ported to PC, because the iApps are a huge selling point of buying a mac.
Apple also unveiled a new campaign with its catchy new slogan: "Do unto others..."
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
... think that this was so wrong of Apple. Looking at the screen shot of xtunes on their own webpage, the similarities are very striking, including the top bar (which copies nearly identically the top bar of iTunes... compare xtunes screenshot to iTunes screenshot).
Apple did a nice thing by warning them first, instead of just taking out a full subpeona and outright attacking them. Maybe they could have done the really nice thing and not have lawyers do the contacting... but with lawyers, it's hard to ignore them and you know that they're most probably really from Apple, not some weirdo trying to scare you. That said, the similarities between the two are very striking, almost an pure copy outside some icon changes.
Hopefully the sumi people can just let this pass and make some good changes to their interface. I must say, as an iTunes user, that there are bits of the interface which I wouldn't mind to see improved, including adding some additional buttons which I used quite frequently on my old MP3 player, Macast.
-Jellisky
I guess the funny bit for me is all contextual, which the "that's not funny" crowd are also seeing but from a different angle. I think it's funny that Apple, no stranger to these legal intimidation [and defense] tactics, is now having "their" phrase turned against them.
To put it in cinematic terms, it reminds me of something like the good guy / action hero turning the bad guy's catchphrase against him as he begins to fight back...
Mindless repitition of an overworn joke is, we all agree, not funny at all. Clever recasting of such jokes can be though.
Ok maybe not a good example but you get the ideaDO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Indeed, the objections to L&F suits stem from a Command Line Mentality, from a world without look and feel. Of course the critics think UI is trivial because they've never thought about it. stdin, stdout, stderr are all anyone really needs, right?
It was the late 80s, and CLI was still the mainstay. It's obvious that the evil judge Vaughan Walker was stuck in the CLI mentality. Truly an exemplar of the saying, "what do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 80? 'Your Honor.'"
From an earlier SD post...
According to Think Secret, Apple's head of MacOS X software development admitted that they were already in the midst of developing Sherlock 3 when Watson was first released. Given that Apple didn't want to throw away the money they had already invested in Sherlock 3, and didn't want to spend more money licensing Watson, they didn't have much choice other than to continue working on S3 and ignoring Watson.
Despite what Karelia would like to believe, Apple didn't "rip them off"; Watson just happened to be following a path Apple was already taking. And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Absolutely! We need revolutionary new kinds of software! We don't need word processors or graphics editors or music players, dammit, we need something fresh and amazing!