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The Beatles, Apple, and iTunes
novus ordo writes "Apple is being sued in London by Apple Corps, owned by the former Beatles and their heirs. This is a third battle over the name 'Apple' in Britain. Apple Corps has previously been awarded $26M by Apple Computer for the use of the name."
I dunno, but only people who are over the age of 50 would even be old enough to remember the Beatles and specifically the name "Apple" being associated with them.
If you ask any random 16-24 yr old person on the street the name of the Beatles label you'll probably get a low percentage of correct answers.
I don't see how Apple Computers is in anyway confusing people away from the Apple label. When I think itunes I don't think of the Beatles. I think of frustration at using a crappy piece of software [in light of things like GNUpod] and horrible DRM.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
From the article -- "The court will be treated to a demonstation of an iPod, but it is unlikely to play a Beatles song, as they have not been licensed for download and it would therefore be illegal." How is that true? I checked the iTMS and there are 16 Beatles songs available, including the appropriate-for-this-lawsuit track "Baby You're a Rich Man." Are they just off base or is there something I'm missing here?
It should also be mentioned at this point that Beatles->Apple are obliged to take action against Jobs->Apple over the trademark infrigement, otherwise the trademark will be automatically nullified.
The article says
Any damages for this latest clash could amount to tens of millions of pounds because it concerns Apple Computer's hugely successful iTunes Music Store and iPod digital music players.
How cute of them. Try hundreds of milliions of pounds. Apple Computer keeps shaving as much off that settlement as they possibly can, and they're going to have to pay sooner or later. The best thing would be a settlement for a few hundred million pounds, a disclaimer ("iTunes and Apple Computer are not affiliated with Apple Corps Records") and an agreement to release the Beatles' catalogue on iTunes giving McCartney, Starkey, and the Lennon and Harrison estates an extra-large slice of the ... well, you know.
I would think, after being successfully sued, that indicated "Yes, WE SUCK. Here is some money so you leave us alone!", in which case, Apple Corps couldn't rightfully sue Apple computers for this... again.
That's right. It's like if I punch you in the face and you sue me and win then afterwards I'm entitled to punch you,kick you, run you down in my car etc whenever I like and you can't do anything about it. It's obvious really.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
What actually do Apple Records do nowadays if they don't hold the back catalogues?
They don't have to "do" anything, they hold an active trademark on the brand name "Apple."
I'm guessing they don't release the new Beatles records, so is it just a holding company to look after the existing assets?
Yes. They distributed music other than the Beatles.
Maybe in this case it would be more effective for Apple Corporation to buy Apple Records - or maybe it would be even more appropriate for Steve Jobs other media corporation, Disney, to just buy Apple Records?
Why should Apple Corp sell for less than they stand to be awarded at trial? Why should Apple Computers or Disney buy an ancient company with insignificant profits for hundreds of millions of dollars?
As for the point of the remaining Beatles licensing the back catalogue to Apple to make available via iTunes, wouldn't it actually be Michael Jackson who would be in the position to do that?
No, it would very likely be Sony.
Actually the U2 iPod didn't come with the music loaded. Some of the media reported that, but I checked one out at the store and what it had was a coupon for $50 off the price of buying the entire U2 collection.
According to TFA, that agreement covered only PHYSICAL media like CDs or tapes. I agree with Apple computer's position, that Itunes is just data transmission...
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
No, according to Apple Computer that agreement covered only physical media like CDs or tapes. Apple Records has a different interpretation. This settlement was reached long before the downloading songs was a common method of music distribution, so this concept was not specified in the settlement.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
It's deliberate that the word "Apple" is not associated with any music selling.
The case is being brought on the merit that Apple Computer is ultimately selling music. Should settlement occur, it won't be a giant blow-out curtosy of the steps Apple have already taken. (This is why no one is particularly worried.)
I find it hard to care about some very very rich people suing some equally rich people.
IANAL but the case wont have too much impact on future law. Apple Computer said that they will never be in the music biz so were alowed to use the name. Now they are they've renaged on the deal so they will have to pay. It's the cost of doing business in that segment. The only question is how much.
Neither of the parties will have any less bread on their table as a result.
Well, they are analogue, so hold much much more than 64kbs. You could encode them at 1Gb/s and still not get all the information.
That most of the information is noise rather than signal, on the other hand...
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Apple Records exists mostly to look out for the Beatles interests. The Beatles have been involved in some VERY lengthy court battles with their record labels (essentially Capitol in the USA and EMI everywhere else. That's not 100% accurate as Capitol was in Mexico too, but it's close enough to accurate.). The Beatles reached a deal with EMI/Capitol where basically they got paid a lot of money, all future releases have an Apple logo on them and the Beatles basically don't challenge EMI/Capitol's technical ownership of the recorded tracks as long as EMI/Capitol do only what the Beatles say with those tracks. The Beatles may not technically own their old recorded material, but they have 100% control over it.
It is now more or less a holding company. Their most successful non-Beatles artists were Badfinger and Mary Hopkin. Apple stopped releasing records under its own label in 1975. They did re-issue some non-Beatles material on CD in the early 1990s, but almost all of that is now out of print.
Apple (the Beatles' Apple) is privately owned and as such, they are under no obligation to sell it.
Michael Jackson owned only the publishing rights to the Beatles' songs. To raise the money to start Apple Records, the group foolishly sold the publishing rights around 1968. Michael has no control over the recorded versions themselves. The publishing rights changed hands a few times and eventually Michael bought it by secretly outbidding Paul McCartney by a lot. Paul has said that he tried to get Yoko to offer more as he felt that as John's widow she should own half of the publishing, but Yoko wanted to get them cheap and refused to pay what Paul thought it would take to get it. While he was trying to talk Yoko into paying more, Michael offered maybe 3 or 4 times what Paul/Yoko's offer was and the guy who owned the songs jumped at it.
The sad truth is that the Beatles will NEVER own their publishing again. I would guess its value is at least half a billion dollars. Neither Paul nor Yoko will fork over that kind of money to get it. It could be worth more than half a billion.
The Beatles and their organization are run very strangely. They think that the less they do, they more valuable their stuff becomes. About once every 5 years, they re-issue something and act like they have given us fans some piece of gold. There are still unreleased tracks in the vaults and I doubt they will ever see the light of day, at least not until Paul and Ringo have died. They ought to try to get as much money as they can now from the old catalog and release the best of the unreleased stuff now while someone still cares. My 13 year old nephew and his friends barely know who they are. I was born in the 60s and to my nephew, the Beatles are as far removed from him in time as the Big Band guys of the 1930s were to me.
The price that Apple Computers will continue to pay until the end of time is that they will have to keep forking money over to Apple Records because they used a name too close to that of the Beatles' organization. Yes, this is pure greed. I say that as a Beatles fan and I'm not particularly an Apple fanboy either.
Not can it only be played to the court, but a recording of the court proceedings, with the song in the background, can be re-broadcast:
4 8_en_1.htm
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_198800
Parliamentary and judicial proceedings.
45.--(1) Copyright is not infringed by anything done for the purposes of parliamentary or judicial proceedings.
(2) Copyright is not infringed by anything done for the purposes of reporting such proceedings; but this shall not be construed as authorising the copying of a work which is itself a published report of the proceedings.
The price that Apple Computers will continue to pay until the end of time is that they will have to keep forking money over to Apple Records because they used a name too close to that of the Beatles' organization.
"Until the end of time" my behind. Apple Computer could probably just spin off its iPod and iTMS business into a wholly owned subsidiary "iTunes Inc." and leave the bit-apple logo off future iPod players. The "iPod" and "iTunes" brands are strong enough that Apple Computer could probably get away with this.