© B Y ..S T E V E ..W E L S H
Oregon MacPioneers User Group (Omug)
I don't know about you, but I'm an optimist. My glass is always half full, not half empty. I'm not a fan of divorce, either. Even the celebrity performer kind isn't pretty -- hated to see Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis break up (they didn't speak for 20 years before finally knocking their wall down prior to Dean passing on).
April 1st will be Apple's 30 birthday. For any longtime Apple fan, as I am, this, indeed, is a special time to reflect and celebrate. Most of us know how many times the computer industry and Wall Streeters tried to bury Apple and sign the death certificate over the years. But if Apple had anything, it was a deeply loyal and devoted fan/user base -- you and me. And Apple is doing just fine right now, thank you (actually, Apple has been just fine from the beginning per producing creative, innovative products, even if only 3-5% of the market "got it" for half of those 30 years).
There is, however, one hatchet I would like to see Apple (but not the computer one) bury after many years of legal battle, and that is the one between our favorite computer company and Apple Records (or Apple Corps., virtually one in the same, but I'll use "Records" to better identify the music issue), the record company and label created by the Beatles.
Here's the Reader Digest version of this story (as best this non-legal mind understands it):
When Apple Computer started, they couldn't get an international claim to the word "Apple" because Apple Records already had it. But they worked out a deal; Apple could use the name internationally as long as it agreed to never "enter the music business" -- in other words, stay in the computer world. Since then Apple Records has deemed that Apple Computer broke that agreement a few times, and has sued and pretty much won each time, with Apple Computer forking over millions of dollars with each successive hand slap.
The first couple of times it was (my opinion) a petty legal quarrel -- the fact that Macs could from the beginning produce synthesized sounds does not pose a threat to the business success of Apple Records. But it is the most recent success of Apple Computer's digital music distribution, the iTunes Music Store online and the iPod, that clearly has stepped over the line that Apple Records first drew in the sand. This is now a definitive music-related venture, if only in distribution.
And yet I still don't see how it threatens Apple Records. If anything, it is really just a name game. Since the last 70s, the word "Apple" in the United States has come to identify the company at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino (unless you are an apple farmer). Before 1976, and certainly almost up to today in England and a lot of Europe, the word "Apple" inferred Apple Records and the Beatles.
Because of this legal "divorce" -- well, alright, they were never a team, but almost anyone can see how they belong together like, well, a bushel of apples -- there are no Beatle songs in the iTunes Music Store. Until recently there were not even post-Beatle songs of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison or Ringo Starr in ITMS. You can find some Ringo (post-Beatle) tunes now. A few months back, a McCartney song DID make its ITMS debut -- it was the Live 8 benefit concert duet he sang with U2's Bono of the Beatles's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." But that's it. No Beatle albums, period.
Now, I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs is a Beatles fan (he is certainly a Bob Dylan fan, and the entire Dylan catalogue is in ITMS); he wants their music in the world's most popular online music store like any other Beatles fan. As far as I know, Paul and Ringo, the surviving Beatles, have no personal animosity against Apple Computer. I'd even guess that both own iPods, if not Macs. Likewise, wouldn't Apple Records want to sell even more Beatle tunes via the best digital online store on the planet, to a new, more tech-savvy generation?
So who's guarding the wall between the two Apples? I do not know how much control Yoko Ono (Lennon's widow) has in Lennon's share of Apple Records, or how much Harrison's family does. But I would think, if Paul and Ringo wanted to, the wall could be breached, if not torn down entirely.
On Feb. 27th, I watched the PBS show Great Performances, which featured a 1-hour special, "Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road." It was a wonderful, intimate studio session with a small audience in the same Studio 2 room that he and the other Beatles recorded their songs. Paul demonstrated how the Beatles recorded on an old 4-track recording machine, and even got the audience involved in recording on the fly, live, right there. Besides the history of the room, and Paul's talent, my eyes quickly widened and zeroed in on some high-tech tools his recording staff was using -- it was a Mac! There was a Cinema Display, the familiar white Apple Pro keyboard and Mouse, clearly visible (although I couldn't see if the Mac was a PowerBook or a PowerMac tower; my guess is a G5 PowerMac). On the screen was either Logic Pro or Garageband. So in Paul's camp, there was Apple (the computer kind) technology. On Ringo's website he posts cute, simple diary-like Quicktime movies, so I suspect there are Mac users in Ringo's camp, too.
To me, this is a no-brainer. Two of the most creative, innovating camps in their respective worlds -- Apple in technology and the Beatles in music. Please, I've already got them married and having children in my mind. So what's the excuse? How long do you have to hold a grudge, Apple Records? Yes, Apple Computer hasn't exactly stuck to the letter of the law you laid down so many years ago, but it did NOT pull a Michael Jackson and buy the publishing rights of all the Beatles songs. So where's the beef, over the word "Apple"?
If your reading this, my favorite computer company and the company which was born out of one of my favorite all-time bands, let bygones be bygones. Let it go. We don't like to see our parents fighting. Just like in a divorce, it's the innocent children (us) that get hurt. We know how to tell apples from oranges and even Apples from Apples. We know which Apple does what. There isn't much time left before all that will remain are the lawyers and thereby, surely, no hope for eternity.
The Beatles sang "All you need is love." We'd like to add, "...and less lawyers."
Please, end the battle, make up. Maybe you can hear the rest of us singing...
"Come together, right now, over me."
END
Postscript:
If you would like to read more on the Apple vs. Apple issue, which is even now in it's 3rd round in the London courts, check out this blow-by-blow history by Geoff Duncan of TidBITS. It's a good read.
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Great Performances, a PBS production:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/mccartney/index.html
Beatles website:
http://www.beatles.com/
Paul website:
http://www.paulmccartney.com/main.php
Ringo website:
http://www.ringostarr.com/
John website:
http://www.johnlennon.com/
George website:
http://www.georgeharrison.com/
Garageband (Apple software):
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
Logic Pro (Apple software):
http://www.apple.com/logicpro/
iTunes (free Apple software):
http://www.apple.com/itunes/