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Beatles Camp Downloads iTunes
You can't buy a Beatles track on iTunes. So, the Beatles' lawyer settled on one from Chic.
Disco was blared in a London courtroom Wednesday as opening arguments, and iTunes demonstrations, began in the fruity matter of Apple Corps versus Apple Computer.
Apple Corps is the Beatles' company; Apple Computer is the iPod addict's supplier. At issue is whether Apple Computer broke an agreement with Apple Corps by developing, not so much the omnipresent iPod player, but the online iTunes Music Store.
To make a long lawsuit short, Apple Corps, which sued Apple Computer in 2003, wants iTunes to lose the nibbled apple look.
Apple Computer was "plainly wrong," Apple Corps attorney Geoffrey Vos argued Wednesday, per the London Times, when it branded the iTunes store with the logo.
To demonstrate that Apple Computer's nibbled apple is all over iTunes, Vos used court time, reports said, to download a track from the service onto an iPod. The selected song, Chic's "Le Freak," played aloud at least long enough to get to its "Aaah...Freak out!" chorus, per reports.
In court, Apple Corps apparently noted that "Le Freak" is one of 3.7 million tunes currently available for 99 cents a pop on iTunes.
"They are selling music," Vos said, per the London Times, "and that is in violation of the agreement."
Apple Corps' owners, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the widows of John Lennon (Yoko Ono) and George Harrison (Olivia Harrison), were not in court. The standard-bearers of the British Invasion movement, however, presumably have a working knowledge of the litigation process. This is the third time Apple Corps has sued Apple Computer since 1981.
The way Apple Corps sees the latest dispute, a 1991 deal between the companies let Apple Computer use its nibbled apple to sell computers, and left the music to Apple Corps' unmolested Granny Smith.
In his opening argument, Vos said Apple Computer once offered Apple Corps a Dr. Evil-esque $1 million for the right to put its nibbled apple on music products. The offer was rejected.
Apple Computer, which has referred to the spat as a matter of divergent interpretations, gets to make its courtroom case beginning Thursday.
Apple launched its iTunes store in 2003. In a company press release Wednesday, it referred to the service as an "online music store," and praised itself for "spearheading the digital music revolution."
About the only tunes a consumer can't buy on iTunes are Beatles tunes. On Wednesday, the sole Fab Four-related product available through the service was an instrumental album of Beatles covers.
Entertainment lawyer Steve Gordon, author of The Future of the Music Business: How to Success with the New Technologies, observed on Wednesday that the Beatles long have been resistant to embrace digital services, not just iTunes.
When asked if he thought the Beatles would ever end up on iTunes, Gordon laughed. "Well," he said, "this [lawsuit] isn't a good sign."
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