May 8, 2006

The Beatles lose. Apple wins.

In the fight over the use of the Apple logo on iTunes. Good.
Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs said: "We are glad to put this disagreement behind us.

"We have always loved The Beatles, and hopefully we can now work together to get them on the iTunes Music Store."
Please, let's all just make money together.

10 comments:

Troy said...

Amen Ann -- and Walt.

Imagine (really... no pun intended) the collection that could be downloaded -- the interviews and performance clips, etc. Paul and Yoko stand to improve their lot in life -- a billion's not that far away. Michelle my belle indeed!

Scott Ferguson said...

According to The Register, Apple Corps announced that is appealing the ruling.

May the greedier corporation win.

Ann Althouse said...

The article says the Beatles will appeal. They lost.

Michiel de Mare said...

walt said:I can't wait until the general population realizes that any songs they download from iTunes will lock after you move them 3 times.

Actually, you can authorize 5 computers, which means that you can move 4 times if you forget (or are unable to) to deauthorize your previous computer. You can circumvent the security by burning the songs to CD (without quality loss) and importing them again (some quality loss depending on how you import).

Annoying, but no deal-breaker for most people.

Akiva said...

While the argument may have a legal foundation, from a business aspect it's competely ridiculous.

A Beatles started music company owns the rights to all images of an apple as it relates to anything dealing with music?

When you think Beatles, does the image of an apple come to mind as their primary trademark? Does an apple enhance their sales, represent their product, bring them to mind? Sorry, no way. Maybe it did at the time the album with that image was released, no more.

When a trademarked image is no longer recognized as associated with the product, does the trademark lose it's legal definition? If not, it should.

Jim Kenefick said...

The Beatles didn't win, nor did they lose, nor will they appeal.

The Beatles don't own Apple Records.

Ann Althouse said...

"Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of George Harrison and John Lennon control the Apple Corps label."

Troy said...

I wish I'd started a Blackberry telephone and calendar company, I too could've filed a lawsuit.

It reminds me of that old Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America where his girlfriend's dad ran a fast food restaurant called MacDonalds.

Nels said...

McDowell's, Troy.

"Look... me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's... I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds."

Steven said...

Akiva --

The thing is, the reason for the decline in Beatle Apple is in at least some part as a result of the Apple Computer-Apple Corps. The result is that the argument that "Maybe it did at the time the album with that image was released, no more" is arguably equivalent to "because you reached a contractual agreement with Apple Computer instead of doing everything to force them to change their name back when they were a small company and you were important, Apple Computer now gets to violate that contract with impunity now that it's important and you aren't."

You may want a legal system that works that way. I don't.