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Bite of Our Apple Forbidden, Beatles Tell Apple Computer Boss

Posted on: Thursday, 30 March 2006, 18:00 CST

It was an icon of the 1960s taking a bite out of a defining image of the 21st century: the Beatles' record label, Apple Corps, on Wednesday claimed the US computer giant Apple "flagrantly violated" an agreement not to use its logo to sell music.

Seeking millions of pounds in damages and an injunction that would wipe the apple trademark from the iTunes Music Store, Apple Corps, still owned by the former Beatles and their heirs, claimed at the high court in London that Apple Computer Inc broke a US$26.5 million settlement in which the company founded by Steve Jobs agreed not to use its apple trademark "in connection with musical content."

Neither Jobs nor Paul McCartney nor Ringo Starr was present but the companies that symbolize the past and the present of popular music faced each other in a courtroom bristling with flat screens, laptops and even an iPod.

The judge, a self-confessed iPod owner, described his visits to iTunes as a barrister downloaded and played the disco classic Le Freak to a small army of corporate lawyers.

Geoffrey Vos, for Apple Corps, accused Apple Computer of trying to "drive a coach and horses" through the 1991 agreement, hammered out in court after an acrimonious dispute sprung up following the creation of the computer company 30 years ago.

Vos told the court that Jobs had been inspired by the example of the Beatles' company when he founded Apple Computer in 1976. Despite refashioning the distinctive logo modelled on a green Granny Smith by taking a bite out of it, Jobs' company met the Beatles in court in 1981. Agreeing a strict "field of use" for the apple trademark, Apple Computer accepted it could not use its trademark in the music business.

Ten years later, Corps allowed Computer to use its apple trademarks for computer "delivery systems" including equipment for recording and reproducing music. The Beatles' company, which has sold 24 million copies of the Beatles Compilation One but still refuses to allow the band's music on iTunes Music Store, retained an exclusive right to use its trademarks in connection with music.

What the 1991 settlement did not foresee, the court heard, was the digital revolution, the rise of downloads and the hugely successful iTunes Music Store, which has sold 1 billion songs.

Apple Corps said Jobs approached Neil Aspinall, the Beatles roadie who became the company's managing director, and offered to buy the name Apple Records for US$1 million in March 2003. Corps refused.

"Although the word 'apple' was deliberately not included in the name iTunes Music Store itself, apple's marks were and have been used on and in connection with the website itself with great prominence," said Vos.

The court hearing is expected to last five days.

Source: China Daily; North American ed.

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