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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."

3 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Cheese w/your whine? by djupedal · · Score: 1, Troll

    Our take? Apple should be happy blahblah blah blah blahblah!"

    Jeeeshh!!

    First you bitch about the baby, now you bitch 'cause we're not married! What's it gonna take to shut you the hell up...?

  2. Re:There goes my week! by Vinnie_333 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yeah, Apple should shut the fuck up!

    --

    "We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
  3. Apple stealing a WORD? by GoMMiX · · Score: 0, Troll

    Seriously, that's just stupid. Apple has no right to the word, pod. Hell, they STOLE it.

    The term POD has been used for well over a decade, in the TV & radio industry. Hell, even dictionay.com has pod listed as a slang radio/tv term.

    I guess if you have enough money to pay enough lawyers to fight enough frivelous lawsuits you can steal just about anything. Even a word.

    Pathetic.

    Keep it up Apple, you're going to sue yourself out of business. I can tell you neither I, nor any of my friends will be buying another product associated with Apple.

    The english language is the property of the people. So, from my view, you're trying to steal from me too. In TFA, it is advised we seek new words to describe the endeavours our generation has sought. (IE audiocast, audcast, etc..) I say screw that. It's OUR word to begin with. Where the hell do you think Apple got the idea from? Just mysteriously decided to give pod a new meaning? Hell no, they took an already widely spoken, common knowledge term, and applied it to their product. Now they are trying to claim rights of ownership to a word they didn't even come up with themselves?

    Jesus.

    I for one will vote with my dollars. And by God, if I can think of something else I can do to injure Apple's campaign to steal the english language - I will.