All you need is love.... and a little boodle.

The Beatles record company lost its' suit against Apple Computer today for trademark infringement. They should have. The Beatles record label claimed that iTunes infringed on the ability of the record lable to make money. In typical British crispness the judge dismissed the suit with the following comments -

"The 1991 out-of-court settlement, which included a US$26 million payment by Apple Computer, set out areas in which each party would have exclusive use of their respective fruit-shaped logos. 'I find no breach of the trademark agreement has been demonstrated,' Mr Justice Mann said in his judgment. 'The action therefore fails.'"

There is little chance that Apple Corps the record label would be confused with Apple Computer's iTunes. No claim was made by Apple the computer company that it was trying to be a Beatles site - because of the shortsightedness of Apple Corps none of their music is up on the iTunes site. But some group of lawyers wanted to argue there was a problem. Unfortunately, for Beatles fans the iTunes site contains only a very few of the Beatles songs. George Harrison has nothing on the site, McCartney has a couple that come from other albums, Lennon also has a couple and Ringo has a ton. The Beatles as a group has a small number of songs that were published on non-Apple Corps labels. That is their loss. (Twice)