Beatles vs Apple

loid_void writes "Beatles fan Steve Jobs could lose a large bite of his Apple to his idols, says a report in Forbes. The Beatles' company, Apple Corps., is involved in a legal battle with Jobs' Apple Computer, claiming the hardware manufacturer is in breach of a 1991 agreement that that forbids it from using the trademark for any application "whose principle content is music." The two companies have been involved in a number of court battles over the years involving the use of the Apple trademark." Good summary of all the wacky misadventure the two mega corporations have had.

Comments

Buy Them Out

[Oculus Habent]

They've jot $4 billion in cash. If they were rumors about purchasing all of Vivendi Universal Music for the same amount, why don't they just freaking buy them. You don't even have to buy them out; just buy a significant interest in the company to shut them up. "Here's a $250 million investment. Let's forget this." It's better than a settlement; it's a resolution.

Re:Buy Them Out

[shotfeel]

From the article:

Despite splitting in 1970, the Beatles interests are still administered by Apple Corps., which is owned by McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison.

Bdfore you can buy them, they have to be willing to sell. I don't know if that's the case here -I'm reasonably sure McCartney et al. want to keep control of their music. That's a problem for Apple Computer.

Re:Buy Them Out

[djtripp]

The rumors about buying Vivendi was actually Apple talking to Vivendi to get them to buy into iTunes Music Store. What Apple Corps (Beatles) is doing now is borarder line extotion. Aparently they took the sound "Sosumi" to heart, and did.

I don't know anyone who thinks Apple and the Beatles are related. I think Apple also had to pay licensing to McIntosh (Arguably the best sound system on the market, but lets not get into that, their stuff is amazing, and ironically, very expensive, and high quality) to use Macintosh.

It just ridiculous.

Re:Buy Them Out

[evslin]

Not knowing anyone who thinks the Beatles and Apple are related doesn't mean anything. A deal was struck between Apple Corp and Apple Computer, and Apple Computer broke it - no extortion involved.

Re:Buy Them Out

[MoonBuggy]

I'm suprised that Apple (computers) are bothering to fight this actually - they clearly wrong, so sell music under the brand of 'iTunes' and be done with it; no rebranding needed since the music already comes from the iTunes program. Seems easy enough, unless I'm being really dumb here.

Re:Buy Them Out

[dasmegabyte]

Your post would be true if the dispute were over a business, and not over a name. Apple isn't using their business trademark to market their iTunes Music Store, not are they using the logo. They've been very careful to maintain the separation...if you go to the iTunes marketing page or the iTunes store itself, the Apple logo is nowhere to be seen -- except on links to their main page or on computer equipment.

It's an essential difference...it's a different functional arm of a larger company, the way NBC is a part of GE or Nullsoft is a part of AOL. Therefore, the issue in dispute is not whether Apple is wrong to have a music arm, but whether they did a good enough job abstracting said service from the name Apple to have there be little room for confusion between the two.

Incidentally, if Apple Corps. wanted to make computers and call them "The Beatle Computer," with no Apple logo on it, I'm sure that would be fine. We'll see if the courts agree.

Re:Buy Them Out

[DavidBrown]

Apple Corps acted in a reasonable manner - it settled their legitimate claim against Apple Computer in return for Apple Computer's promise to not enter into the music industry. If Jobs and Woz named Apple Computer "Coca-Cola Computer" instead, they would have been driven completely out of business.

Yes, I do believe that it was a voluntary deal - Apple Corps. and Apple Computer settled Apple Corp's quite reasonable trademark infringement claim in a perfectly reasonable (at the time) manner. Twenty years ago, why would anyone suspect that Apple Computer would ever get into the music industry?

Contracts, however, are made to be broken. Apple Computer could certainly violate the settlement it entered into with Apple Corps, but only at a cost. Now Apple Corps has a great breach of contract lawsuit against Apple Computer, and Apple Computer gets to pay the penalty.

And why is this unfair? Jobs or his successors (I forgot who was in charge in 1991) certainly knew what they were doing when they originally settled with Apple Corps, and Jobs certainly knew what he was doing when he decided to break the contract. They could have easily created "iTunes Music" as a separate corporation not taking advantage of the Apple name. Of course, Jobs knew that this was going to lead to a lawsuit from Apple Corps. He's probably betting that the advantage of keeping iTunes under the Apple umbrella is worth more than what he'll have to pay to Apple Corps. Only time will tell if Jobs made the right decision, or stepped firmly upon his penis.

AppleCorp as a megacorp?

[six11]

Maybe I'm cynical, but, uh, AppleCorp as a megacorp? What's the threshold of calling a company a megacorp?

Spinoff?

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't Apple just spin off the music part into a separate operating company like "iTunes, Inc." and be done with it?

Can't wait for all the fanboy posts

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how litigious Apple is with protecting their trademark I don't see any room to bash the other side here. Oh and btw this company was around before Apple the computer compnay was even created.

Also considering that the article mentions a "1991 agreement that that forbids it from using the trademark for any application "whose principle content is music." " this doesn't seem to be too baseless a claim. Apple will pay and in return they will get access to the Beatles catalog. Not a bad deal IMO.

Wow, interesting

[31415926535897]

I had no clue the Beatles had a company called Apple Corps. There's a Wikipedia entry about it.

Regarding the case, it sounds like Apple is screwed. It sounds like they haven't won any of these cases in the past (or, at the very least they settled out of court paying large sums to the Beatles' company).
It sounds like Forbes thinks this will be one of the largest court cases in histroy (from TFA), but I'll be that Apple will end up settling out of court (probably for a large amount still, but if they habitually break these rulings/agreements, they're going to have to pay).

It doesn't look like the news hurt Apple too much today.

Has Apple avoided this problem?

[Dark Paladin]

The store in question is not the "Apple Music Store" - it's the "iTunes Music Store". It would appear that, under the terms of the agreement, Apple has done everything it could to avoid using the Apple logo - save for the part in the store where it says "Copyright Apple Computer, Inc" - which is more than enough to establish it being different from "Apple Records".

As far as the previous posts about Apple Computer buying out Apple Record - why the hell not? It would ensure that the Beatles music would only be available via the iTMS - not that I am stating this is a "good" or "bad" thing (bad, if they stop selling CD's, good otherwise), and would truly cement Apple into the music business, while removing a pain in the ass.

It's not the music store, it's the contract

[X_Caffeine]

All the posts regarding potential confusion between Apple Records and Apple Computer (and pointing out that it's called the iTunes Music Store, not Apple Music Store) are completely missing the point.

A deal was hashed out years ago after Jobs'n'Woz called their upstart company Apple. It wouldn't be unlike you starting a music store called Dell -- Michael might have some issues with that.

Apple and Apple made an agreement -- Jobs'n'Woz could keep their corporate name if they agreed not to get in the music business. And now they've broken that contract. QED

I'm sympathetic to Apple Computer, but they don't have a leg to stand on here.

Re:Why?

[Anita Coney]

First, your argument does not matter because there is no question that Apple breached the settlement. This new case is NOT a trademark case it is a breach of contract case. If you truly were an attorney, you'd know the difference.

Secondly, the Beatles HAS released new music. Check out allmusic.com and you'll find that the Beatles has released MANY new CDs since their breakup.

Thirdly, it does not matter if the Beatles released new music or not. Since Apple is still selling the OLD CDs they are still in business.

This is NOT an instance where Apple music has abandoned its trademark, it is still being used every day to generate millions of dollars.

Re:Please...

[swordgeek]

"Apple Music."

Maybe I'm just old, but my first association when I hear those words together is the red and blue albums, with the Apple Records logo on the label.

Apple computers might actually benefit from a perceived connection with Apple Records. More to the point, if Apple totally tanks then any apparent connection between the companies could hurt Apple Corps.

That's why they cut a contract, and that's why the music company is determined to force the computer company to uphold that contract.

WIN::WIN::WIN Scenario....

[PortHaven]

WIN::WIN::WIN Scenario....

Apple delves into their $4 billion cash reserves. They then buy the "Beatles" rights off of Michael Jackson (giving Jacko some much needed raw $$$).

They then negotiate a deal with Paul McCartney to exchange ownership of the "Beatles" library for a merger with Apple Music and exclusive right to online digital distribution of the said Beatles library.

Apple wins doubly (ends legal battle gains exclusive Beatle content rights). McCartney doubly wins (re-gains ownership of music and gains shares in Apple Corp. online venture!

vwaaalaaa....

Now was that so hard?

iTMS will only deal with labels, not artists:

[SkimTony]

This brings an interesting point to mind - when gathering tracks for use on the iTunes Music Store, Apple will only work with labels (it doesn't have to be an RIAA member, they work with "independent" labels as well) and not individual artists.
Perhaps that policy is insulation against this very problem - if they were to work with artists directly, they could be considered a record label, but as long as they're working with established labels they are demonstrably just another reseller.