While I was in Rome, Italy stuck with all the crappy Italian TV without any decent news, I missed the news of Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs scoring a home run against Apple Corps, the Beatles’ record company. Since I wrote about it earlier and I hate it when people do not follow up on stuff, I just had to write about it – even though it’s old news by now. The battle was over the question whether iPods and iTunes will still be allowed to carry an Apple logo. Justice Anthony Mann ruled that the computer company used the Apple logo in association with its store, not the music, and as such was not in breach.
As the BBC reports:
Justice Mann ruled iTunes was “a form of electronic shop” and not involved in creating music.
“I conclude that the use of the apple logo … does not suggest a relevant connection with the creative work,” he wrote in his judgment.
“I think that the use of the apple logo is a fair and reasonable use of the mark in connection with the service, which does not go further and unfairly or unreasonably suggest an additional association with the creative works themselves.”
Apple Corps must pay its rival’s legal bill, estimated at £2m, but the judge refused an interim payment of £1.5m pending further hearings.
Interesting enough this judge was pretty much in tune with modern day society, as he revealed before the trial he actually owns an iPod and likes it.
Needles to say Apple Corps didn’t agree with the Judge:
Apple Corps manager Neil Aspinall: “With great respect to the trial judge, we consider he has reached the wrong conclusion.
“We felt that during the course of the trial we clearly demonstrated just how extensively Apple Computer had broken the agreement.
“We will accordingly be filing an appeal and putting the case again to the Court of Appeal.”
My opinion on this case is short: Apple Corps is just out for some easy bucks. Let’s hope they loose the appeal too. One last observation: after the ruling the Apple stock didn’t show much reaction to the news, but ever since May 8th it has been loosing some value: it went down from $71,89 (May 8th) to $67,68 (May 15th).