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Now, C'mon!


Wyatt Tuzo

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Uh... Apple Computer paid the Beatles' company about $100 million for that logo back in 2007. This is just paperwork. Apple Corps got a license in perpetuity to keep the names "Apple Records" and "Apple Productions," so they lost nothing.

I know way, way too much about the Apple vs. Apple lawsuits...

http://en.wikipedia...._Apple_Computer

Peter Doggett's excellent book You Never Give Me Your Money goes into a lot of detail about some of the Beatles' lawsuits over the years (including the extraordinary settlement with Capitol Records around 1989), and another good one is San Soocher's book They Fought the Law: Rock Music Goes to Court. The three lawsuits between Apple Computer and Apple Corps are a very interesting part of that story -- even more interesting when you consider what an enormous Beatles fan Steve Jobs was for most of his life.

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The Cult of Mac story really doesn't have the facts or the history right at all. Also, I'm not even sure what the point was they were trying to make. As Marc has said, the real and complete history is fascinating and has taken so many odd turns, legal maneuvers and so forth, since the very beginning of the Beatles' Apple, Corp. My first personal recollection of some of this came when I found out that there was trouble between Apple Computer, Apple, Corp., and BOSE when Apple came out with BOSE speakers (a version of their MM-101 music monitors) branded as Apple speakers. Apple, Corp. took Apple to court stating that these Apple speakers violated the promise to "not enter the music business". I don't remember how it was all settled but I do remember that Apple stopped offering Apple (BOSE) speakers as an accessory to their computers.

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Apple Corps was also upset that Apple Computer had signed a deal way back in 1980 or so promising not to enter the music business, and then started advertising Apple Computers being used with MIDI in the late 1980s. That was lawsuit #2, which was a much bigger settlement (I think around $20 million). The original lawsuit was just over the name "Apple," period, which they paid with about a hundred grand and a couple of dozen free Apple II computers.

According to some insiders, the Beatles' manager, Neil Aspinall, thought they could make a killing by going after Apple a third time in 2003, all because of iTunes and the word "Apple" being used on the iTunes Store. Apple Corps basically lost the case because the judge ruled that nobody would look at iTunes and assumed it had anything to do with the Beatles. Aspinall retired very shortly afterwards, and some have interpreted that as a sign that he was fired. However, he was also in bad health and died only about a year after the settlement. And the Beatles did get $500M out of it (I erroneously said $100M earlier!), if you believe published reports. The real truth is all sealed and hidden away.

It's a fascinating case, and I know it pained Steve Jobs to be involved in such an acrimonious situation with rock icons that he loved. His statement on the settlement was: “We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”

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