Apple sues Apple over music downloads

Beatles trying to take a bite out of Apple's iTunes

27 March 2006 18:14 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Apple may be fighting the French government over plans to enforce its iTunes Music Store to be opened up, but in the meantime, the company is in the British courts, this time fighting music giants, the Beatles.

The case, which has been dragging on for decades and is back in the High Court this week, revolves around Apple Computer breaking a $26 million settlement with the Beatles owned music label Apple Corps, where it agreed to steer clear of the music business.

The legal battle started over the use of the company's name and logo, but has since revolved around Apple's hugely popular music store iTunes.

The Beatles' label, Apple Corps, owned by Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison is claiming that the computer company has continued to market itself as a music distributor and broken the agreement.

Following the $26 million settlement in 1991, Apple Computers was bared from distributing content on physical media, but critically not digital downloads.
Apple claims that its iTunes store might have sold over a billion tracks but that this is merely data transmission rather than distributing content on physical media.

Following the 1991 settlement, Apple Corps was awarded rights to the name on “creative works whose principal content is music” while Apple Computer was allowed “goods and services ... used to reproduce, run, play or otherwise deliver such content”.

Apple Corps sued Apple in 1981, accepting an $80,000 settlement and a promise that the computer company would stay out of the music business.

Full tags

Audio, Online, Music downloads, Apple