“Lawyers for Apple Computer Inc. on Thursday asserted the company’s right to distribute music through its iTunes Music Store, rejecting claims by The Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd. that doing so violated a 1991 trademark agreement,” Jill Lawless reports for The Associated Press. “Apple Computer lawyer Anthony Grabiner said the “distribution of digital entertainment content” was permitted under the agreement, in which the two companies promised not to tread on the other’s sphere of business.”
Lawless reports, “Grabiner said ‘even a moron in a hurry’ could distinguish between the computer company’s online music business and a record label like Apple Corps. ‘Data transmission is within our field of use. That’s what (the agreement) says and it is inescapable,’ he said… Grabiner said the fact that Apple Computer distributed music didn’t make it a record label, and so did not violate the agreement – which set Apple Corps’ domain as music content and Apple Computer’s as hardware, software and the digital distribution of data. He said no ‘reasonable person’ would assume that Apple Computer created or owned the 3.5 million songs on its hugely successful iTunes music store. ‘It’s obvious that the content comes from a wide variety of content providers,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious that Apple Computer is not the source or origin of the content.’ …The trial began Wednesday and is expected to last at least five days.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t the remaining Beatles geezers Ringo and Paul and the Beatles geezer parasites (Yoko) have enough money for their retirement? Can’t they rifle between the couch cushions for a spare mil or 800? Why don’t they just “discover” some more old unfinished tapes and release some more crap like “Free As A Bird” if they want to cash in again before they cash out?
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Great line by the Apple lawyer and I loved MDN’s take.
Beatles—termites. Just eating away.
Apple better hire more lawyers.
Sgt. Pepper album in the new iTunes commercial.
A moron in a hurry, yes. But could Enderle tell the difference?
Does anyone confuse Napster with a record label? Real Networks? Apple Corp only link is the name. Why doesn’t McIntosh (maker of awesom audio gear) sue Apple over the Macintosh computer since it can encode and decode music signals? Nobody confuses these two products, either.
‘moron in a hurry’ — this is a quote from another case some 25 or so years ago in which the British Communist Party daily newspaper, the Morning Star, sued a new tabloid paper which had called itself the Daily Star.
Lawyers for the Daily Star contended that only a ‘moron in a hurry’ would confuse the staid Communist Morning Star with their own racy tabloid (complete with photos of topless girls).
The Daily Star won the case. No doubt laywers for Apple Computer want the judge to recall that case and rule for them too.
How bout Apple inc sue Apple corps for wasting there god damn time!!!
Sgt. Pepper –
i think they could argue that they did sell the track ‘Sgt. Pepper’ like 20 minutes after the live8 event it was played live at.
i’m going to sue the beatles because ukraine girls do not in fact knock me out – and they said they do.
cArlo under British law if Apple Corps Ltd. loses they’ll have to pay Apple Computer’s legal fees.
Both sides have employed pretty famous (in UK) top barristers to put their case, so this is also about their egos. By saying ‘even a moron in a hurry…’ is itself a nice sideswipe against the Apple Corps barrister and the individuals who started this case.
My guess is that this case will settle the Apple v Apple thing, once and for all. The judge will not let the final decision be so ambiguous as the 1991 agreement. Also the judge knows society/culture has moved on so much since 1991, that to now suggest there can be confusion between the Apples is riduclous. God knows why Apple Corps even brought this case on. Greed I guess, they just must see Apple as an soft target.
You can be certain, SJ and his legal team saw this issue from the moment ITMS was born and just figured that any case had a better than 50.50 chance of going their way.
My money is on a win to APPL.
What’s 4ft tall and lives off dead beetles?
Yoko Ono
tommy boy, and UK barristers don’t come cheap.
What has Beatles done in the last decade? If a company doesn’t do anything *significant*, their trademarks must be revoked.
All that Apple Corps could use as logo is simply take a picture of apple and use it? How lame is that?
WOW…..all these years of study and they use this vocabulary.
Find in favor of Apple Corps Ltd. Have Apple Computer Inc. pay Apple Corps Ltd. $1.00 in damages. Case closed. Next!
This case is about lawyer’s egos and greed and nothing more.
So should Amazon Records sue Amazon.com for starting an online music store? You’d have to be a genius with nowhere to go to know the difference.
sales must be down and piracy must be up
hey! wait a minute, I love Free As A Bird (1994).
Isn’t it the case that if you don’t make proper use of a trademark for long enough then it can be taken away from you by someone else who wants it?
Apple Corps don’t even have a proper website.
http://www.applecorps.com/
“This is a placeholder page for Apple Corps Ltd.” (from the above web page)
…pathetic, Apple Corps.
In my opinion Apple Corps are really just (long-term) cyber squatters. Time for an eviction methinks.
i wonder if the green apple has a trademark or copyright…maybe green apples should sue apple corps??
Dirty Pierre le Punk:
I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair on that one!
I am a moron in a hurry, and I am suing Apple for… well… something
You’re right, MechWarrior2. He should have said, “a person of notable mental dificiencies with an accelerated motivation for mobility.” Better?
Back in April 2003, Lord Grabiner’s quoted rate was £1000.00 per hour which means he’s probably on anywhere between £1500-£2000/hour now plus the cost of the rest of his team at the One Essex Court chambers.
Just by way of humour, it should be noted that one of juniors at OEC goes by the name of Andrew Lenon which would just be too good an opportunity for taking the piss. That said, another senior member of that chambers goes by the unfortunate name of Jeffery Onions.