Apple now claims trademark on “podcast”
I hate to be a Chicken Little, but it is quite possible that we are seeing cracks in the firmament above.
On or about Friday, September 22nd, Apple (AAPL) sent a cease and desist notice to a little company called Podcast Ready, who make a nifty little take-anywhere podcatching application called myPodder. We know Apple (AAPL) has issues when “ipod” is part of any name (understandable) and when you have “pod” describing a physical device (a bit of a stretch). But with this recent action, Apple steps (to borrow a phrase from Scott Sigler) on the fu**nut bus to Crazy Town. From the letter:
["pod" and in fact "podcasting"] consists in substantial part of Apple’s IPOD mark, and contain Apple’s POD mark in its entirety.”
It gets worse:
Moreover, the term POD has also been adopted and used extensively in the marketplace by consumers as an abbreviation to refer to Apple’s IPOD player.
Well that’s utter bullshit. I know dozens of folks who own iPods and hundreds of people who know what an iPod is. I’ve never ever heard anyone drop the “i” in either casual or formal conversation. But perhaps Apple thinks that if they say it enough times, it must be true?
The final shoe:
While Apple, of course, has no general objection to proper use of the descriptive term ‘podcast’ as part of a trademark for goods and services in the podcasting field, it cannot allow marks that go beyond this legitimate use and infringe on Apple’s rights in POD and IPOD.
My interpretation of that is this: “If you want to call what you do a podcast, that’s fine with us. But if you have a related product or a destination and you capitalize that first “P”, we’ll be on you like stink on poo.” So it’s got me thinking about Podiobooks.com again, folks.
I could really use that intellectual property attorney, if you have one in your sphere of influence.
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:54 am
how about changing the name to Paudiobooks.com and thumbing your nose at apple’s bu11sh1t attorneys
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Evo, I can arrange an introduction to Colette Vogele of Vogele and Associates — and one of the authors of the Legal Guide for Podcasters. Intellectual property is her specialty. Contact me through LinkedIn, or just directly, and we’ll go from there.
September 23rd, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Apple is shooting itself in the foot here…
Instead of accepting what could be seen as “free publicity”, they are destroying a fledging market.
But any move away from the word ‘podcast’ the better… It’s confusing for some people… some people have already said “I can’t listen to podcasts, because I don’t own an iPod”, which is of course not true, but you have to tell that over and over again.
September 23rd, 2006 at 2:22 pm
yes I agree, that is complete horseshit.
So what’s next?
Are they going to go after the people involved who made “Invastion of the Body Snatchers” next? I mean they DID call them “POD people”.
Crikey.
September 23rd, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Doesn’t matter if it was a horse or a bull… still stinks to high heaven.
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Apple now claims trademark on “podcast”…
From Podiobooks.com: On or about Friday, September 22nd, Apple (AAPL) sent a cease and desist notice to a little company called Podcast Ready, who make a nifty little take-anywhere podcatching application called myPodder.
“While Apple, of course,…
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:49 pm
Man, I really want to like Apple, and most of the time I do, but their legal department are a bunch of crazed carnivores. Luckily, this would never hold up in court, so long as the defense lawyer was competent. Unfortunately, if it gets that far it’ll take someone with the will and the financial resources to take on Apple, something most small (or even large) companies have.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:20 am
would it solve the problem to simply use a “p” instead of a “P”? like “podiobooks” instead of “Podiobooks”? I agree that Apple seems to be shooting itself in the foot and possibly alienating their prospective customers. There was a knitting designer several years ago who (or her attourneys) became extreemly aggressive about the use of her name (thinking that they were protecting her designs) and she then became well known in knitting circles as “She who must not be named”.
September 24th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Ha. I hope somebody stomps on Apple’s toes really hard, if they try to pull this one into court.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
ihave only had this ipod for a couple of months i really don’t care for it all everything is so high priced for it and everything you put on it apples wants it to be theirs, the only thing that i love about it is the podiobooks, free books to listen to, at the time if i had know what i was doing and there were other ipods to choose from it would not have been this one by the high priced conpany apple
September 24th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
I think this stinks. And no, you should not give in by changing the name. Well, I guess you might not be able to afford to do otherwise thanks to Apple’s deep pockets. Bunch of fuckers need to be spanked.
September 24th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
So, I am only new to the whole rss and xml thing but I know that if we have this situation understood correctly, that perhaps Apple is beginning to lose sight of what made the likes of itunes great. If you start to do stupid things like this, then you risk losing a lot of business. Let’s just face it, there are enough folks who are already considering boycotting these large companies because of shit like this.
If you don’t like what Apple is doing then send letters and emails complaining about it. Don’t just stop using the product. Boycotting large companies is not enough. At least try to make your voice heard!
September 25th, 2006 at 5:20 am
Apparently Apple are going to sue my local grocer because he was selling “Apples” .
September 25th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Excuse my ignorance, but which came first, the podcast or the iPod? Lets all start calling podcasts something else. YouCasts? No, Google probably have that covered. If enough people start calling them something else kids will soon be asking “Why is it called an iPod, Dad?”
September 25th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
POD also stands for Print On Demand. Considering that many of us (like myself) are both POD casting and POD printing, they’re in murky waters there. And again with the alienation of potential customers.
Also, Apple got sued before because they promised to the Beatles (who had the name Apple long before they did) that they would produce no music-related products under their name. I believe a second case is still in litigation (google apple vs. beatles to see how I arrived at that conclusion). If I were going to go after them, I’d focus like a laser on this naked hypocrisy.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
I hope Apple gets STOMPED on this and we can all share a little …
“APPLE C i DER”.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I’ve commented on another discussion of this issue, but a little repetition won’t hurt.
Apple did not invent the term “podcast”, there were lots of “pod”s of various kinds for ages before there even computers, and they should treat it as free advertising rather than confusion. The only confusion I see in the marketplace is that some potential consumers of podcasts say “oh, but I can’t listen to podcasts because I don’t have an iPod”. How does that hurt Apple?
A “pod” is some kind of storage container (pea pod). An “iPod” is an Apple-produced device for storing and presenting entertainment media. Judgement rendered. Go home.
This has been another “solak explains it [tm]” production.
September 28th, 2006 at 11:16 am
>”Apparently Apple are going to sue my local grocer because he was
>selling “Apples” .”
Nope, different industries entirely, which is how MS gets away with “Windows”. That’s the crux of this issue, actually. Since Apple didn’t actually create the term “Podcast”, if it went to court it would all come down to whether or not using that term to describe a product or service could create confusion in the market place.
It’s not likely that anyone who is looking for an Apple computer will accidentally buy an apple. If, however, someone were to start selling “ePod” mp3 players, as an example, Apple would have good rounds to sue, and they’d be right to do so.
In this case, I don’t think they have a case at all, since I don’t think they can show that the term Podcast creates confusion in the marketplace. Then again, when I told my mother she should check out a few podcasts I was listening to, her immediate response was “but I don’t have an iPod”, so who knows.
>”ihave only had this ipod for a couple of months i really don’t care for
>it all everything is so high priced for it and everything you put on it
>apples wants it to be theirs”
Say what? By “everything is so high priced for it” do you mean 3rd party accessories? Apple has no control over that. If you mean the iTunes Music Store, then the answer is simple: Don’t buy songs from iTMS, no one is forcing you to.
And on what grounds can you claim that Apple wants to claim ownership over everything you put on your iPod? That’s a completely illogical statement, and it’s simply untrue.
I’m not trying to play “defender of Apple” here (I think they’re wrong, and I’ve said so), I’m just asking for logical and truthful statements, and a little critical thinking. Is that too much to ask?
October 4th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I’ve already seen a site that has two links. One to subscribe to the podcast, and another for RSS. They don’t go to the same place.
One of the shows i listen to is also broadcast on radio. The narator talks about both audiences as “on the radio”, and “on your M P 3 player”. They never say ‘podcast’ or ‘ipod’ or anything.
I mean, i’d like to be able to hear my stuff on an OGG player, but OGG players just aren’t available for my car’s CD player, for my pocket, for DVD players, etc., and those that do are quite expensive. I need a standard. The current standard *is* MP3 for the foreseeable future. At least MP3 doesn’t seem to support DRM.
When i have a headache, i take a an aspirin. I buy the generic store brand. I blow my nose using generic store brand klenex. Get over it.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:13 am
This is an old post here, hopefully someone already has seen this article:
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/11/29/man-requests-podcast-license-check-returned/
Basically the guy who does the GlobalGeekPodcast sent a request to Apple to use the term podcast and received a letter back from their trademark department basically stating they hold no claims over the term podcast.
./D