This little passage is interesting in its historical time line of the transistion in music from stone scraping plastic to the new digital wonder era:
Apple Corps., the record label's holding company, sued the fledgling computer business for infringing on its trademarked name. The matter was eventually settled out of court in the early 1980s, with Apple computers paying a settlement and agreeing not to enter the music business.Interesting that this case is not so much about copyright statutory law but contrat law as the parties have an agreement which now over twenty years old. Expect the future to lose again, a settlement of bazillions to Ringo and friends as well as a lock on your iPod which will now only play "Good Morning, Good Morning" when you turn on the danged thingamajiggy.By the late 1980s, Apple Corps. had launched a new lawsuit against the computer company, claiming that adding sound to their computers and selling music software was another infringement of its trademark. Apple Computers paid another settlement and agreed not to sell physical music materials such as CDs.
Apple Computers launched its now-ubiquitous digital audio player iPod in 2001 and, just two years later, began unveiling their iTunes online music stores in various countries. The music players and the internet store have since dominated the digital music market.
Comments
Flea - March 29, 2006 9:13 AM
It was my impression that your arguments have tended to favour the upholding of the law vs the downloading of the non-copyrighted. I fail to see how asking Apple Computers to honour a contract is in any way a loss for the future. They can rename their company tomorrow without changing their iPod technology, their iTunes content or indeed the name of either of these best selling products.
Flea - March 29, 2006 9:14 AM
Pardon, "the downloading of the copyrighted" (without payment).
Alan - March 29, 2006 9:31 AM
Excellent observations. If you note in the article, it says:<blockquote class="smalltext">However, the computer company said in a statement that the two companies "now have differing interpretations of this agreement and will need to ask a court to resolve this dispute."</blockquote>In that contract it may restrict the computer company from transferring music related technology to another company. If the parties now both see that the contract needs interpretation by the courts to deal with unanticipated new media implications...well...there is little that more thrills that small bit of a contract lawyer's heart left in some hue of pink. Imagine just getting an hour with their factums or, gosh, being able to sit through days of argument on clause after clause of technical structure of drafting. Being amongst people who are simply construing as oppose to interpreting. Magic. <p>The whole "Good Morning, Good Morning" thing was a bit of a glib off-the-cuff remark which you, my gentle mantrap of the intellect, have caught me on. Sha'n't be, I am sure...unless Ringo really wants to take his cut in royalties. I wonder how much Mick and the lads made on "Start Me Up" or Eno on the Windows opening music.
Flea - March 29, 2006 11:05 AM
I take your point about brand ownership being a potential impediment to the future assuming a) such impediment takes the form of restricting technology transfer, and b) that such technology transfer is as (marginally) important as I suspect it is. In which case these brand negotiations would still be a smaller (and temporary) impediment in comparison with Apple Computer's threat to withdraw from the French market should France legisltate that music downloads be playable on multiple platforms. It isn't just the vinyl companies who have a stake in maintenance of their monopolies, brand-related or otherwise.
Alan - March 29, 2006 11:13 AM
After your previous remark I had to stretch the legs and I contemplated how there is a future past aspect to this. The contract can only foresee the future as of the date of its drafting. The most interesting things is the apparent agreement of the parties to refer the past's understanding of the future to a judge in the future present to determine the path of the parties into the future. They have gone this route rather than coming to a private amendment of the original deal. That either means they have a roadblock of imagination now or the parties each had the right to refer to the court after a certain amount of back and forth. Procedurally fascinating. <p>Beyond that is, as you say, the way that corporate interests of each kind in large part define the otherwise intependent path of technology development.
Chris Taylor - March 29, 2006 1:19 PM
Hmmm... aging musical hippies vs. aging technical hippies.
I'm rooting for the lawyers.
Alan - March 29, 2006 2:11 PM
Whoooot!! I knew I'd win you over.
alfons - March 29, 2006 3:18 PM
Hiya, Alan, as someone with some knowledge of (Canadian) law in the digital age, any comments about the discussion here?
It's not entirely safe for work, but it's about this affair, and I presume you still know a bit of Dutch, and about the liberal Dutch culture, to grasp some of the details.