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Comment by technothrasher | Hacker News Reader

It wasn't that their computers weren't permitted to produce audio, its that they had made an agreement with The Beatles' Apple Corps that they wouldn't use the "Apple" trademark for products which were principally for creating music. The dust up was when the Apple IIGS contained a dedicated sound processor. Apple Corps thought that was too close of comfort and sued.

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Took many years but honestly Apple Corps was right to be concerned. Think how much more brand recognition Apple computer has now, and that's pretty impressive considering the Beatles.

They were right to be concerned, in the sense that in the long-term they were outcompeted in the marketplace.

That doesn't mean they were right to sue, or that they should have succeeded.

Nobody has a right not to have competition, and the Apple IIGS was not a device principally for creating music.

On the other hand, imagine the tsunami of lawyer-shit you'd be drowning in if you started a record label called "iPhone Corp" today?

Almost entirely because that's not a word. Calling something "Lightning" would be a lot closer, as a trademark they use but with very conditional mindshare.

That’s different because the iPhone is not a generic object like a fruit. You could totally call a business Macintosh Records and get away with it though

I'd argue that iPhone is a generic term like band aid or Google.

"Pad" and "Pod" are certainly generic.

https://blog.tracyjonglawfirm.com/has-ipad-become-a-generic-...

> I'd argue that iPhone is a generic term like band aid or Google.

And you would lose that argument. 2/3 of those are not generic terms.

Yeah I don’t think iPhone flies as generic but by god in my time of technical support do I find people refer to all manner of cheap $50-$100 Walmart special android tablets as “iPads” and it’s caused me more than a few headaches.

Recently, Apple sued a company over of its pear shaped logo : https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/08/legal-action-against-co...

And other organisations as well:

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/05/apple-norway-progress-p...

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/05/01/apple-opposes-german-cy...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._litigation#Trademar...

If it wasn't Apple, it would have been Disney.

http://www.mtv.com/news/3020742/fake-nickelodeon-products-pe...

I don’t see how apple can be said to have ever competed with a record company. Unless there is something I am missing out on here?

You're thinking too narrow. Apple the record company considered itself to be operating in the broader domain of audio/sound/music/playback etc. Apple the computer company had started to enter that domain.

But then in the present day, there is Apple Music so now they are certainly competing (and have already settled with Apple records).

For example they bought Apple trademark from Apple records for undisclosed sum and now they're licensing it back to Apple Records.

> Nobody has a right not to have competition

actually, trademark holders do have a right not to have competition that is branded with their same name, and consumers have a right when purchasing Apple records to be buying from the Beatles and not from a rip off artist.

By the point of the release of the Apple IIGS and the Mac II, the Amiga was already on the market and other consumer-priced, user friendly systems with GUIs had sound capabilities. Apple Computer likely argued that the development of audio functionality in desktop workstation size PCs, post 1985, was a marketplace inevitability.

You mean the Beats headphones? /s

Honestly, Apple should have given them the middle finger back then and not agreed to any terms. It was a bullshit complaint from a record label against a computer company. I doubt they went after Apple Roofing or Apple Autotech, or Apple Consulting. They saw a big company in the making and wanted their cut.

Apple was a relatively small startup and The Beatles were an international sensation backed by the same kind of insatiable corporate lawyers who brought us the RIAA and the DMCA. Considering how things turned out, Apple probably made the right choice.

It was. But now there is Apple Music.

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