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Apple Goes After the Term 'Podcast'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lots-of-frustrated-casters-out-there dept.

Udo Schmitz writes "Earlier this year, Apple went up against companies using the word 'pod' in their product names. Now, Apple is going after the term 'podcasting'. Wired has the complete text of Apple's cease-and-desist letter to Podcast Ready." From the article: "Robert Scoble -- whose own company, PodTech, may be at risk in this witch hunt -- has weighed in on the issue by suggesting that the tech community as a whole adopt other terms like "audiocast" and 'videocast' (or alternately, 'audcast' and 'vidcast') to describe this type of content, while other folks feel that fighting Apple and generating a ton of negative press for Cupertino is the best solution. Our take? Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity, and if it isn't, we know of several companies that probably wouldn't mind if zencast, zunecast, or sansacast became the preferred terminology."

4 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. CBS is using "netcasts" now by rwven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In response to Apple's ridiculous stand on "podcast," CBS is now referring to their "podcasts" as "netcasts."

    http://www.cbs.com/netcast/

  2. Is Apple actually going after "Podcast"? by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The term "podcast" was clearly a surprise to Apple. They didn't even start using the term even casually, let alone in a product, until it was already in world-wide generic use.

    It's not clear to me that they have a policy of going after people who use the term "Podcast" in business. The other term, "myPodder", is clearly the kind of thing that Apple has gone after in the past. Without that, would Apple's lawyers have acted? This could simply be an attack lawyer going overboard.

  3. Re:About Time by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How about "recording."

    I mean we had cassette players in the 70s and 80s that were portable. We called what was on them "recordings."

    Why is this so hard?

    Podcasting is a term used by retards who think they invented something new. OMG A PORTABLE COPY OF SOMEONES NOISE HOLE!!!!

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  4. Re:There goes my week! by rjcarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Didn't Adam Curry more or less "invent" the term podcast? It was always my understanding that it stood for Personal On Demand Broadcast. Sure, not a great definition and a suspicious use of the term "pod", but justification nontheless. And how can apple complain now that they've host all sorts of third-party podcasts in iTunes for a while, and they clearly use the term "podcast". Doesn't seem like they are consistent at all.