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Apple vs Apple -- Judgment Day
DaphneDiane writes "According to the Times Online Apple Computer successfully defended themselves vs the suit brought by Apple Corps." If you are looking for background on the case we had talked about it earlier. I'm just relieved that the battle of two bazillion dollar companies turned out well. Phew. And, of course, Apple Corp has filed an appeal already.
I wonder how much the estate of the late John Lennon or other Beatles really wanted a legal fight with Apple Computer. I think they missed out on millions of USD in downloads from iTMS due to their absence. So was it really Apple Corps led? I don't see on which basis an appeal from Apple Corps will be successful. Let's hope to see the old (and upcoming newly digitalized spiffed-up tracks) on iTMS soon.
Rubies and Pearls are not what you think.
off limits trademark, they should have instead used a made-up word (something like Exxon?) that doesn't mean anything in any popular language but sounds cool, and not a word in the dictionary/history or common place item.
Would Apple Computer care about someone selling a coat?
Oh for Gods sake - stop being such a whiney fanboy. All large corporations are litigious and Apple is one of the worst offenders.
They've issued legal threats to everyone from The Church of Satan (for "Made with Macintosh banner") to the (now ex) owners of the itunes.co.uk domain (registered long before Apple started selling music)
Go and register AppleMac.co.uk (or something similar) and see how long it is before the lawyers arrive.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I'm neither a business expert nor a historian, but I have never understood how Apple Corps had any possibility of winning a trademark infringement case against Apple Computer... whether in the same business or not.
Look at these two examples:
Budweiser (Budvar, Czech Republic) and Budweiser (Anheuser Busch, USA). Same name, same business. And I have seen both products sold in the same location before (I prefer the Czech version myself).
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) and ABC (American Broadcasting Company). ABC... ABC. Same business.
And these are just off the top of my head. Certainly there are others.
I don't get where the Beatles were going with their action. Clearly Apple Computer was not going to be made to stop using their own logo and name. Nor were they going to be made to stop selling music via iTunes. What gives?
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Imagine for a moment if Apple Computer had obeyed copyright and trademark laws to a “t” in this case. What products we never have seen the light of day? When you ponder this for a moment, it becomes clear how out-of-hand this nonsense is.
Join Tor today!
This is a travesty - not for the gain or loss of two billionaire corporations ...
... Naked album of a few years ago, wasn't all that well liked, but we fans bought it anyway. It reminds me of Eddie Murphy's old joke about giving a starving man a cracker. He's not going to refuse to eat because he wants something else, he's going to say "Man, that was the best cracker I ever ate!"
Why does everyone keep repeating this incorrect statement? Just because the submitter thinks it's true, doesn't mean it is.
Folks, Apple Records, Apple Corp, whatever you want to call it, is NOT a billionaire corporation. Sir Paul McCartney is a billionaire, but it's not because of Apple Corp or the Beatles. He is a billionaire because he bought out song publishing companies years ago, which is where the real money is. The Lennon estate was worth $100 million at the time of John Lennon's death, most due to investments Yoko made. The late George Harrison's estate was probably worth less than $100 million at the time of his death and Ringo Starr is definitely worth less than that. If you have any knowledge of royalty rates in the industy, you will know that the Beatles simply can't be making the kind of money some of you attribute to them. In my opinion, the Beatles and their lackeys have seriously mismanaged their catalog and the failure to put out "new" product (yes, believe it or not, there are still things in the vaults that could be released officially for the first time, such as the White Album demo sessions) more than once every 5+ years have actually kept them from earning as much money as they could have earned. They release material so infrequently that it sells simply because of scarcity, not because of merit. The last offical release, the Let It Be
I don't think there is any realistic chance of the Beatles (Apple Corp) competing against Apple Computers. Apple Corp likes to sit back and get paid. They don't like to actually do something to get the money and setting up their music download store would require real work.
For a band that basically redefined the popular music of its time, years ahead of their time, their management has been atrocious. I remember waiting for Beatles CDs to be released, long after everything in the major label's catalogues had already been ported to digital (Sgt Peppers was released 20 years to the day after it originally came on on vinyl, and the line stretched around the block at Cactus Records in Houston that day). I remember the Beatles choosing to release the first four in Mono (good choice), issue no American releases (they later changed their mind, to make money no doubt), then reduce their sizable Vault down to three good (if incomplete) double-Cd volumes. If the Beatles fail to secure their legacy by making their recorded music available as widely as possible (which they seem hell-bent on doing) then it is their own damn fault. And it is a crying shame. Every last child on earth should know Revolver, if nothing else.
This gives a whole new dimension to the Penny Lane lyrics:
This is not really on topic, but anway...
If you mean that their pricing could change with the switch to Intel-Chips: Yeah, it has changed. Since the Intel chips cost about twice as much as the G4s, the Mac mini and MacBook Pro prices have effectively gone up. Still competitive with comparable PC makers, though.
If you mean that the "closed machine mentality" could change: Uhm, what closed-machine mentality? Have you used a pro-level Mac made during the last decade?
There's money to be made not just from the music, but the warm fuzzies of nostalgia deep in the hearts of boomers who indeed DO remember what the record labels looked like when they brought the big ol' pieces of vinyl home and put them on the victrola to spin round and round.
Without trying to sell the music short, that's part of what Apple Corps is selling. For a big chunk of their target market (old people who want to buy Beatles' recordings), that adds value. For all we know, seeing it may be the key to pushing a wary consumer over to the "buy" column, which would explain its placement on the "Anthology" CD sets. (Note the prominent use, on the front of the latest Beatles Box set, which just came out this year, of the early 60s "rainbow ring" Capitol Records label and logo.)
True, any amateur can try, but apple will void your warranty if they found out you opened your mini.
No, they won't. You are either badly misinfomed or else you are just spreading FUD.
I have a mini, ordered the day they were introduced, and I upgraded the memory myself as soon as it arrived. I also swapped out the hard drive for a 7200 RPM one a few months later.
The 1-year warranty remained 100% valid. (Although, obviously the 3rd-party items I installed are not covered by AppleCare.) I didn't buy the extended warranty, so I believe it just ran out last month.
The mini is very easy to open. The little clips are not nearly as brittle as the FUD-meisters would have you believe. They bend away and/or snap out with no damage at all.
I found the tricky part to be getting it to close back up correctly. You gotta line up the airport antenna just right, then get all those little plastic clips clipped back in while lining up this little pad with the back panel. Took me 2 or 3 attempts the first time I did it.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I've heard of the Beatles
I've heard of Apple (computers)
But I've never heard of Apple Corp., I doubt a lot of consumers have heard of Apple Corp. even though they are a wealthy company. I doubt Apple (computers) is affecting their bottomline.
Can I bum a sig?
This is a good point. Apple Corp was initially started as a distribution channel that small or unknown artists could use to produce and release their higher risk products. The Beatles, owning said company, used it for their own projects as well.
Of course, the Beatles products are the only ones that had any persistant appeal. But Apple Corp is still marketing and distributing those products.
In that context, Apple Corp is a packager and distributor with a diminished, but still very profitable and valuable, catalog. If iTunes is also considered to be a distribution channel, and had the Apple logo on it, one could understand why Apple Corp felt to need to protect it's brand and trademark.
Windows: The operating system built for the internet. Unix: The operating system the Internet was built for.