Absolutely Average

From the BBC news website

Technology giant Apple has reached a deal with the Beatles to end the dispute over the use of the Apple name.

Apple Inc will now take full control of the Apple brand and license certain trademarks back to the Beatles’ record company Apple Corps’ for continued use.

Apple Corps’ (The Beatles) lost their recent court battle against Apple Inc. (Apple Computers), some would say on a technicality. This is unfortunately not true. So why did Apple Corps’ lose this case ? Let’s see if I can answer.

The actual agreement between the 2 parties from 9th Oct 1991 can be found in this article. Here is a snippet (with my added emphasis):

1. DEFINITIONS

• 1.1. “Apple Catalog” means the sound recordings, musical works, films and videos which now or hereafter cannot be released or published without Apple Corps’ consent.
• 1.2. “Apple Computer Field of Use” means (i) electronic goods, including but not limited to computer, microprocessors and microprocessor controlled devices, telecommunications equipment, data processing equipment, ancillary and peripheral equipment, and computer software of any kind on any medium; (ii) data processing services, data transmission services, broadcasting services, telecommunications services; (iii) ancillary services relating to any of the foregoing, including without limiation, training, education, maintenance, repair, financing and distribution; (iv) printed matter relating to any of the foregoing goods or services; and (v) promotional merchandising relating to the foregoing.
• 1.3. “Apple Corps’ Field of Use” means (i) the Apple Musical Artists; the Apple Catalog; personalities or characters which appear in or are derived from the Apple Catalog; the names, likenesses, voices or musical sounds of the Apple Musical Artists; any musical works or performances of the Apple Musical Artists; (ii) any current or future creative works whose principal content is music and/or musical performances; regardless of the means by which these works are recorded, or communicated, whether tangible or intangible;

As you can see in 1.2. it was agreed that Apple Computer could use the name in relation to computer software of any kind on any medium, data transmission services and broadcasting services. This clause in the agreement grants Apple Inc. the ability to transmit/broadcast data using any kind of software. Now their argument in this case was that iTunes doesn’t actually transmit music but data and unfortunately this is correct.

If however Apple Corps’ had used section (ii) from clause 1.3. as a part of clause 1.2. to limit what form of data Apple Inc. could transmit then this case would have gone the other way.

Because of this oversight (and it was an oversight as in 1991 when this agreement was made, it was already possible to encode music as digital data and transmit it) Apple Corps’ now have to license their own name back from Apple Inc.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 10:18 am and is filed under Rants by Scouser, A Scouser Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.