“The legal wrangle between Apple Computer and Apple Corporation, which represents the Beatles’ interests, could end up in court, said Steve Jobs, the computer maker’s chief executive, yesterday,” reports Charles Arthur, Technology Editor for The Independent (UK). “Apparently to emphasise that he would not let the lawsuit block his plans to sell online music in Europe, he chose to play a Beatles track – In My Life, performed by the late Johnny Cash – before a keynote speech in Paris yesterday.”
“Mr Jobs essentially dismissed the agreement’s relevance yesterday, noting it was drawn up after he left the company in the mid-1980s, and before he returned to it in 1996. ‘Apple Corporation and Apple [Computer] signed a legal agreement more than a decade ago. I wasn’t there, and it says what each company can do with their trademark,’ he said. ‘I inherited that, and right now there’s a disagreement about this. It’s a trademark dispute… We might have to get a judge to decide on it,” Arthur reports.
Full article here.
Sounds about right to me.
I am glad that Steve is holding his ground. I believe that this suit is a bunch of BS. Apple computer is not doing ANY harm to Apple corp.
iTunes in the US is about to explode later this year when it hits the Windows market. [Buy your Apple stock NOW!] Apple Corps would be better off saving their millions of pounds of barrister’s fees, and negotiate a deal with Apple Computer’s iTMS ASAP!! One of the biggest events in the past 20 years in the music industry and Apple Corps wants nothing to do with it?!!
Imagine the media coverage over the first release of Beatles on the internet (via iTMS) the SAME DAY as the release of iTunes and iTMS for Windows?!! Everyone wins!! They have an opportunity to be the #1 music group AGAIN!!
At this point in time, with Apple Computers being much more widely known as well as their iTunes, iPod, and iTunes Music Store, (not to mention enough cash on hand to to buy Apple Corps outright or have this battle drag on forever), it will be a huge uphill fight for Apple Corps. Old contracts seldom hold any value if circumstances change, and Apple Corps waited years after the introduction of iTunes and iPod to speak up. They may have waited too long.
There is a very good chance Apple Computer will win, and Apple Corps will be banned from the greatest music marketing venue, iTMS,… FOREVER! .. only to be left with a feeble future of chasing illegal copies on the internet and prosecuting 12 year olds downloading bootlegged Beatles’ tunes for their ancient history class.
It’s a shame that the keepers of Apple Corps would rather seek revenue from litigation rather than from the music itself. A very sad time for the Beatles. :,-(
Actually, “sounding right”, or “holding ground” has very little to do with anything here.
It’s more a matter of the rough-and-tumble of trademark issues, usually in the context of much a particular business has invested in a trademark before some freeloader comes along for the ride, or somebody trying to enforce a completely unjust agenda.
If you don’t believe that Apple Computer is equally as cutthroat as anybody else in this sense, try starting a business that has *anything whatsoever* to do with computers or consumer gadgets, using anything to do with the word “Apple” and watch Apple’s lawyers jump on you like a ton of bricks.
See it for what it is: just another mega-corporation tiff over a load of dollars.
Hat’s off. Well done, as we know that “hard work always pays off”,
after a long struggle with sincere effort it’s done.
Apothecary Jobs