Jobs to The Little App Factory: Name change “Not that big of a deal”
crunchgear.com
crunchgear.com
What was frustrating to us was the sheer number of Apple employees who recommended our product time and time again, with Apple management well aware of our product and its name. With millions of downloads (many from Apple employees), we're frustrated because Apple recommended and encouraged us and then--six years later--decided it was time to litigate.
Again, I'm not saying we're right. Apple is completely in the right to defend their mark, but I really don't think it it's in their best interest at all, and if we posed any serious threat, they would have taken action a long time ago.
* Edit: Sorry if this post is sloppy. I haven't slept in a while.
Steve could have been more tactful, I suppose, but he at least took the time to respond, and gave you an honest, direct answer at that.
Sorry you guys have to go through this, but in the long run I doubt you'll see (too) much pain from this. Good luck.
Just make a big landing page 'iPodRip is now known as iRip'. That way you can keep all of the search engine juice you accumulated with the former name.
Pidgin (formerly gaim) survived a very similar situation to yours and the Pidgin homepage is still the top google result for 'gaim'.
The issue is the lawyers. They don't want us to have the domain at all, which is clearly where most of the value lies.
And as Jobs doesn't care either way... there just seems to be a large disconnect between the decision makers at Apple (who don't care at all) and the law firm that represents them (the law firm is the 2nd largest in the world, with 2 billion in annual revenue).
You are entitled to negotiate, since the letter you received from from Apple's lawyers, not from court whose decisions are final or limited to a narrow kind of appeal. IANAL, but this is basic common sense. In any case, you should be taking to an attorney to ensure that whatever action you do take protects you from future claims of liability.
Talk to some SEO gurus because I'm certain there's a best practice for doing something like this.
To go back to the Pidgin/Gaim example, it doesn't appear that they own any gaim related domain beside a way out of date sourceforge one and they still own all of the top spots for 'gaim'.
edit: another idea, post an "ask HN" about it, I'd be curious to see what this crowd would come up with.
We are speaking to some "SEO guys", but I'd like to get some opinions from some startup folk.
If he really had to reply, he could've gone with "Not that big of a deal. Check your mail" and sent a cool Apple product for being a great developer. Lacking this, his reply comes across as cold to a genuine concerned developer.
I'm no fan of IP law but too often companies hide behind the law when the actual root cause is themselves.
As to SJ's reply, well, he's the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation. He said what was on his mind and dealt with the issue quickly and decisively - who are we to fault that? (Tangential remark: as a bunch of startup founders/partners/employees, we've created a culture amongst ourselves of "corporate friendliness" - long, well-thought out letters from the execs about every little issue and ubertransparency through blog posts - and we build it into business practices, because that's what we think we need to compete. I'd like to see us all 20 years and a few billion dollars in revenue later - who really thinks they'll be acting much different than SJ at that point?)
Don't want to to do it? Send it back to the legal department, who will at least address the guy like a human being. If they had told him back in 2003 that they felt he was infringing on their mark, that'd be one thing. But to passively acquiesce for 6 years and then pull th rug out from under him smacks of incompetence, and a one-line dismissal of a sincere attempt at compromise is just arrogant.