Sour Apples: Beatles vs. Jobs

[beagledave]

@wm--

But from my understanding (just based on this thread and some news articles), it wasn’t really a question of trademark infringement, but breach of contract. Apple Computer signed a sweeping agreement not to market music under the Apple banner, and it seems pretty cut-and-dried that they violated that.

But the TMA is the key component of the contract that Apple Corps feels was violated.

Reading the decision is kind of interesting. The judge spends a lot of time describing the interface of iTunes…when does the Apple Computer logo appear, and in what context…

22. It is the appearance of this apple logo while the Store is on screen and being accessed that is said to be a (and indeed probably the principal) breach of the TMA. It is said that its use is a use on or in connection with musical content (ie with the creative works whose principal content is music.) Mr Vos particularly relies on the fact that the Apple logo disappears and is restored as being a factor which emphasises the connection or link with Computer.

23. One of the things relied on by Computer as demonstrating that it does not display its logo in connection with content is the fact that the store and the downloaded track contains information making it clear that Computer does not own the rights to any of the music. If one clicks on an arrow marking against an individual track in the store, the upper pane displays details of the album from which the track is taken (if it is not already displayed). That information includes a graphic representation of the album source (in the nature of an album cover or CD insert) together with some listed information about the album. Amongst that information is a line which identifies the owner of the rights in the music preceded by a “§” or other mark. In the store the information is not available until one has done that. If one has a listing of a number of tracks which do not themselves constitute an album (ie they are taken from more than one album) one cannot immediately see who owns the rights in any of them; one has to perform the selection operation that I have just described before one can see it. The same rights information can be made to appear once the track has been downloaded by highlighting the track and going into an “information” window where the attribution can be made to appear in the same form. That information (along with other information, such as the artwork and track information again) is encoded into the downloaded bitstream. Mr Vos makes the point that all this requires a certain amount of mouse-clicking through various options. It is in fact one click away from the track-listing window in the music store, and one or two clicks away when in iTunes.

[Ludovic]

@asterion

Is anyone else highly amused that the judge’s name is Mr. Justice Mann?

Let me tell you how it will be.
You won’t shut down iTunes on me
Cause I’m the Justice Mann!

[Acsenray]

Trademark law is set up to protect owners’ interests in their marks. The relevant harm at issue is the harm to the mark itself. That is, the association in the public mind between the mark and the source of the goods or services.

Apple Corps’ interest is in protecting the association of the mark “Apple” with Apple Corps as the source of the goods of services in the relevant market (music). Furthermore, trademark law requires them to take action to protect their mark. If they fail to take action against Apple Computer, then they risk a future adverse ruling, which would result in their losing some or all of Apple Corps’ trademark rights.

While there also might be a monetary harm, that is a side issue when it comes to trademarks.

And, yes, from the standpoint of trademark law, if you own a record store, you are in the music business.

[rjung]

@asterion

Is anyone else highly amused that the judge’s name is Mr. Justice Mann?

At the risk of spoiling the joke, I’ll just mention that the dude’s surname is “Mann”; “Justice” is just the title, the UK’s equivalent of “Judge”.

[asterion]

@rjung

At the risk of spoiling the joke, I’ll just mention that the dude’s surname is “Mann”; “Justice” is just the title, the UK’s equivalent of “Judge”.

Well, yeah, I knew that. Judge Mann would be also somewhat amusing but Mr. Justice Mann I can put to the tune of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” which I can in fact get on iTunes. Plus, Mr. Justice is a much cooler title.