Apple Corps was founded in 1968 to publish music by The Beatles and to sign new musicians. George Harrison found an advertisement for an Apple Computer in a computer magazine in 1980 and decided that it infringed Apple Corps' trademark. Apple Corps told Apple Computer to change its name if it wanted to continue producing music making machines and in 1991, Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business and paid a settlement of $26.5 million.
Apple Computer doesn't see its new service as infringing any past agreements however. According to reports, the company claims that iTunes allows "data transmission" and that downloads are permitted in terms of the agreement as they are "data transfers". Whether the court will see eye to eye with that claim will be seen soon.
Source:
The Register













