“Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”
As the famous Beatles song goes, the beloved band has finally resolved its long-time dispute with Apple. According to the Wall Street Journal, The Beatles’ decision to withhold their music from iTunes was strongly linked to the band’s decades-long trademark battle with Apple. In fact, the trademark and copyright stories of these two parties are strongly intertwined.
The conflict first arose in the 1970s, as The Beatles argued that then-seminal computer company, Apple, had lifted its name and trademarked logo from their record company, Apple Corps. In 1978, The Beatles’ music company and its green Granny Smith apple logo, had sued Apple for trademark infringement, and in 1981, Apple Computer both paid $80,000 and agreed not to enter the music business, a promise that was ultimately broken with musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) in 1991 and then with iTunes.
Despite this history of conflict, Apple had long been fighting for the Beatles’ music to be sold on iTunes. The trademark case had still not been resolved when Apple sought to sell the band’s songs through iTunes, when it launched in 2003. Interestingly enough, when the trademark case had been settled in 2007, Apple announced the end of digital rights management or DRM, which is an “anti-piracy lock-and-key system” implemented to ensure that songs purchased from iTunes, for example, could not be played on any other mP3 player other than Apple iPods. Apple had made an agreement with Warner Music Group, Sony and Universal Music Group to sell DRM-free songs.
On the exact day that Apple implemented the DRM switch in 2009, the Beatles announced the release of their digitally re-mastered collection on CD. The Beatles clearly not only had an issue with Apple over its signature trademark, but also up until that point, actively resisted digital sales, especially DRM-free sales, enabling anyone to copy and share songs. The Beatles reluctantly licensed their work for its inclusion on the popular video game, Rock Band.
In November 2010, Steve Jobs excitedly announced that The Beatles would be available on iTunes. The billboards across the country, as well as a prominent display on the iTunes Store’s home page, not only seemed to be a celebration of reconciliation between Apple and The Beatles, but also of the outstanding profits to come. In fact, since last November, The Beatles have sold more than 5 million songs and 1 million albums on iTunes.
