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Apple Goes After the Term 'Podcast'
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:15 AM
from the lots-of-frustrated-casters-out-there dept.
from the lots-of-frustrated-casters-out-there dept.
Udo Schmitz writes "Earlier this year, Apple went up against companies using the word 'pod' in their product names. Now, Apple is going after the term 'podcasting'. Wired has the complete text of Apple's cease-and-desist letter to Podcast Ready." From the article: "Robert Scoble -- whose own company, PodTech, may be at risk in this witch hunt -- has weighed in on the issue by suggesting that the tech community as a whole adopt other terms like "audiocast" and 'videocast' (or alternately, 'audcast' and 'vidcast') to describe this type of content, while other folks feel that fighting Apple and generating a ton of negative press for Cupertino is the best solution. Our take? Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity, and if it isn't, we know of several companies that probably wouldn't mind if zencast, zunecast, or sansacast became the preferred terminology."
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Your Rights Online: Apple Warns Companies About 'Pod' Naming 392 comments
eldavojohn writes "In what may be a case of trademark trolling, Apple has issued warnings to makers of other electronic devices containing the word 'pod.' Two companies have been asked to remove the word from their products. Why might this be a mean action by Apple? These two companies don't manufacture MP3 players as one would think would cause confusion. From the article:
Back in the day, if someone was calling an electronic device a 'pod,' I would have thought they were talking about Line 6's Guitar and Bass pods (which I believe have been around for a while). How come they aren't warning Apple about their iPod naming?"Profit Pod is a device that compiles data from vending machines, while TightPod manufactures slip-on covers designed to protect electronic products such as laptops and MP3 players.
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There goes my week! (Score:5, Insightful)
Trademarks are ridiculous when they're normal, everyday words. While I don't support trademark law, I can understand "Xerox," but pod? Come on.
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Informative)
I use iTunes for playing music and podcasts but I haven't visited the Music Store before iTunes 7 in a *long* time. Now that they are really pushing podcasting content on there, I'm all about finding free media.
Don't piss off your userbase Apple, you should know better.
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Informative)
They're not going after peopel who create podcasts. They're going after Infostructure Solutions LLC and Podcast Ready Inc. over the terms 'Mypodder' and 'Podcast Ready' which were recently filed for trademarks.
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is a trademark whore. They seem sue anybody using a term that might be related to thier products even if the term itself is not trademarked. But they don't concern themselves at the onset. They wait to see if something actually becomes popular to send in the wolves.
Bullshit. Apple likes the fact that the term podcast is popular and based on their existing brand. It is as though everyone started calling modding pickups for racing toyotafizzing. Toyota would be cool with that too. The problem is when another company or companies apply for trademarks that include your trademark and try to lock down terms to that only they can sell things in that market. If some company tried to trademark the term "Toyotafizzle" to use in their aftermarket mods of all trucks, not just Toyotas, you can bet your sweet ass Toyota would send them a nasty letter in short order too.
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Funny)
Apple won.
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd argue that the word "podcast" is already generic -- are there any audio blogs that don't call themselves podcasts?
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Insightful)
(Warning: IANAL)
Another thing to remember: trademark isn't like copyright. Copyright requires no special action for you to initiate: your works are copyrighted to you, unless you sign those rights over to someone else, and copyright notices only serve to notify the people of your right. Trademarks, on the other hand, need to be registered and filed, often in multiple countries if you're a big company. In the US, if you get a trademark and don't defend infringements upon it in court, the courts can hold that your trademark has been invalidated.
So in other words: if Apple doesn't do this, they may risk losing the trademark on the word "iPod." I think you can understand why they'd consider this bad.
Uh - yes [google.com].
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of portapotty [wikipedia.org].
Hmm. How about "portapoddy"? (-:
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Informative)
To sum up for those that can't be bothered: Apple owns the trademarks "IPOD" and "POD". These people filed a trademark application which incorporates those existing trademarks in their proposed trademarks. Apple would like them to withdraw the application. It's all part of the process. No harm, no foul. That's why you don't instantly get trademarks -- they go through this sort of review and examination process.
Parent
Re:There goes my week! (Score:5, Informative)
The "inventer" of the word (apparently a Ben Hammersley, not Adam Curry, but... meh) actually responded to Creative on this point in one of the funniest putting-corporation-in-its-place responses I have seen: Source: here [guardian.co.uk]
(* I am listening to my beloved Zen as I type this, and I don't like or own any Apple goods, so I'm not being a fanboy, I just genuinely think that was a lame thing for Creative to try...)
Parent
About Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About Time (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean we had cassette players in the 70s and 80s that were portable. We called what was on them "recordings."
Why is this so hard?
Podcasting is a term used by retards who think they invented something new. OMG A PORTABLE COPY OF SOMEONES NOISE HOLE!!!!
Tom
Parent
Not to be outdone... (Score:5, Funny)
Good luck apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, is the management at apple losing their grip? they should have told the legal department to back off on things that benefit them heavily.
CBS is using "netcasts" now (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.cbs.com/netcast/ [cbs.com]
Pod nazis? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's crap like this that would make me buy a Zen and call it my "F!Pod".
-Rick
Letest News: Feds confiscate Anakin's Podracer (Score:4, Funny)
Ummm...no they're not. Read the Cease and Desist (Score:5, Informative)
Is Apple actually going after "Podcast"? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not clear to me that they have a policy of going after people who use the term "Podcast" in business. The other term, "myPodder", is clearly the kind of thing that Apple has gone after in the past. Without that, would Apple's lawyers have acted? This could simply be an attack lawyer going overboard.
Summary is WRONG (Score:5, Informative)
Apple is asking the company to stop using the term "MyPodder". They explicitly state they are not asking them to stop using their company name "Podcast Ready" (see the bottom of the second-to-last paragraph, page two).
Is it too much to ask that the editors read the actual story before approving it?
RTFA extract (Score:5, Informative)
RTF headline
Why can't submitters at least RTFS&DL.
They're not going after the term podcast (Score:5, Informative)
Apple is not objecting to use of Podcast (Score:5, Informative)
-S