Apple ruling demonstrates the absurd

Stan Beer
Monday, 08 May 2006 17:45

Your IT - Home IT

The real court case between the record company started by The Beatles, Apple Corps, and the computer company started by Steve Jobs and Steve Wosniak, Apple Computer, was settled out of court 15 years ago. Back then, Apple Computer did the right thing and paid Apple Corps $26 million for the right to continue to use its logo in peace.

Back then, a full three years before the world wide web started to become a public phenomenon, no-one could have foreseen what was going to happen to the music industry. Certainly no one could have predicted the role that Apple Computer was destined to play - no-one inside nor outside of the computer company. So when Apple Computer promised the company founded by The Beatles that it would not associate its trademark with the music recording the business, it meant it.

Then of course came iTunes and iPod and the rest follows the pattern of events that culminated in today's High Court ruling. The point of the matter is when does the issue of trademarks, logos and copyright reach the level of the absurd? The answer is when two companies with similar names in two totally different businesses that do not intersect go to court over the use of a logo.

Apple Computer's high-tech racy multicoloured logo does not look anything like the low tech picture of an organic piece of fruit used by Apple Corps. Apple Computer retails music online from a very sophisticated web portal. Apple Corps is supposed to be a recording company - a company that facilitates the making of recorded music for artists. From what we could tell, the company does not even have a proper website - just a place holder page with an image of the company's green apple logo and the company's telephone number. Apple Corps is certainly not in the music retailing business.

If for the past 15 years, Apple Corps had grown into a vibrant, successful diversified music business, with an online presence, with perhaps a retail or wholesale arm, like say Sony Music, which is a major supplier to iTunes, then it may have had a better case. But even then, Sony Music is a wholesaler that supplies music from its own stable of artists. It is not an online retailer like Apple Computer. There is no competition or intersection of the businesses.

Of course, if Apple Corps decided to go into the online music retail business or to make MP3 players then things could get interesting. However, there is not much chance of that happening and the point would be moot, given that Apple Computer was a pioneer in both fields.

The Beatles were legends in their time but today the name of the company they started with studios in Abbey Road means little to anyone except rock historians and perhaps a few die-hard baby boomer fans. Today, if you showed someone in the street a picture of the Apple Corps logo and asked them what it is, they would say that's an apple - a piece of fruit. If you showed someone a picture of Apple Computer's logo, they would very likely say that's the logo of Apple Computer, the company that makes iPods, Macs and has the iTunes online music store. This case was an absurdity from start to finish.