Apple beat Apple Corp.

Hot news from the High Court in London. Apple Corp, the Beatles’ record label, has lost their bid to force Apple Computer from using an apple logo of any type on the iTunes Music Store.

The origins of this conflict go back to the early 1980s, when Apple Computer agreed to certain restrictions placed on them by Apple Corp in return for being allowed to use an apple logo for their company. The details of this agreement remain secret, but the gist of it seems to be that so long as Apple Computer didn’t move into music (or related) businesses, Apple Corp would leave them alone. It is also believed that Apple Computer handed over a fair chunk of cash, too.

Initially, this agreement was easy to work with. Early Apple computers had only limited sound capabilities, but as the years went on, arguments arose over just what the agreement entered into between the two companies allowed and prohibited. If a Mac was capable of generating music or creating sound files, was that an infringement?

The famous “sosumi” system beep featured on Macs running System 7 and later versions of the Mac OS is perhaps the most celebrated examples of this confusion. Apple Corp supposedly objected to Apple engineers creating beeps that sounded musical, so one engineer came up with a beep that reflected his position — so sue me!

Subsequent litigation by Apple Corp occured in 1989, over Apple building in the abilitiy to process MIDI files (a type of music file) was ended in a financial settlement in 1991, and then in 2003 Apple Corp took Apple to court again, this time over the iPod and the iTunes Music Store. It is this action that has now been concluded.

To an outsider, this is one of those legal battles that seems daft. No-one, surely, is going to muddle up a computer company with a record label? Apple Corp argue, though, that as the boundary between computer services and music services become increasingly blurry, it would actually be very easy for someone to believe that music bought from the iTunes store was actually being bought from Apple Corp, and hence the confusion over the apple logo.

With the High Court ruling in favour of Apple Computer, hopefully this issue will be put to rest. Apple Corp have had a good ride, and gotten a great deal of money out of Apple Computer that they didn’t really earn. Their business are sufficiently different that it’s hard to imagine that Apple Computer has cost them any sales of Beatles record albums or sheet music. Indeed, the irony is, of course, that since none of Apple Corp’s catalogue of Beatles songs is available at the iTunes Music Store, they’ve probably lost millions in sales by not putting their songs up there for sale. For Beatles fans everywhere, hopefully that will soon change.

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