BuyMusic.com is intentionally mimicking Apple’s iTunes Music Store’s successful advertising campaign.

“‘Yes, there is a similarity between the ads,’ BuyMusic spokeswoman Stacey Doherty said. ‘It was meant to be a compliment to Apple,’” reports Wired’s Danit Lidor.

Lidor continues, “Doherty says the point of the commercials is to entice people who own PCs, which happens to be almost everyone. ‘Music for the rest of us’ (BuyMusic.com’s slogan) means everyone who doesn’t have a Mac, which accounts for about 150 million PC users,’ she said.”

“Apple could choose to fight back, certainly. Copyright law provides protection for an expression of an idea, but not for the idea itself. However, there is ‘substantial similarity’ between the two ads that could be used ‘at least as a valuable argument’ for a copyright-infringement lawsuit, said Robyn Crowther, an intellectual property attorney at Caldwell, Leslie, Newcombe & Pettit,” Lidor reports. ‘The fair-use doctrine does provide a defense to copyright- and trademark-infringement claims,’ Crowther said. ‘The critical issue will be whether the BuyMusic.com is a parody of the Apple ads. When the second work just borrows from the first work to get attention or to avoid having to develop something new or fresh and does not make fun of the original work