Apple Threatens iTunes.co.uk Owner 354
derxob writes "According to The Register, Apple has accused Benjamin Cohen, the 'dotcom millionare' of being a 'cybersquatter.' He registered ITunes.co.uk on Nov. 7 2000, and Apple trademarked ITunes on Dec. 8, 2000. They have taken him to the UK registry Nominet and are demanding that he give up the domain."
He should try to get their trademark signed over!! (Score:4, Interesting)
He should try to get the itunes trademark signed over.
Re:So which is worse? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd think Apple would want to stay far far away from Trademark and name disputes wrt the music biz - doesn't Apple Records still have lawsuits going because Apple Computers violated their agreement to stay out of the music biz with that name?
Re:He should try to get their trademark signed ove (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who had an iTunes domain first? (Doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Who had APPLE firts. Does that matter? (Score:2, Interesting)
Amayzing that they are now defending what they were then refuting.
It's kind of like MS ripping off windowed GUI and then pattenting their own. (Oops I just cited precedent...)
Re:Filing / First Use Date is What Really Counts (Score:2, Interesting)
Summary: He may not have started out as a mean, evil, coward of a cybersquater. But as time goes by he begins to look like one.
Tortured Analogy: He didn't know the railline was going to go in when he bought the land but when it turned out to be worthless for his original intentions he decided to hold on to it just in case.
Now the railway company wants it to build a station on it.
Should they be forced to pay him whatever he demands or should he be forced to hand it over by the courts. On the gripping hand, maybe he should be forced to accept a fair market value for it. Compromi(s|z)e, is it that hard?
Re:He should try to get their trademark signed ove (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the huge Apple rumour mill, it is not impossible that the product name was even known a few months before the launch.
This is not clear and should be something for the lawyers. You seem to have just as much bias as Apple fans.
Blatant British Slant (Score:5, Interesting)
If one can successfully pull away all the spin and red herrings, here are the facts:
- Cohen registered "itunes.co.uk" on Nov. 7, 2000.
- Apple published the "iTunes" trademark in the Trade Marks Journal on Dec. 6, 2000, about a month later.
So Cohen had the site slightly before Apple trademarked the name. Seems like pretty coincidental timing. What did Cohen do with this site? He forwarded it to another online music site that he ran, with a totally different name. Why would he register a domain as obscure and nonsensical as "iTunes", but not go after the trademark itself, or market any products or services using the name? And how come the timing was so close?
It seems clear to me that Cohen knew what Apple was doing, and saw an opportunity to profit from Apple's marketing (by deceiving web surfers into accidentally stumbling onto his own service), or extorting money from Apple.
I hope this punk loses, and I wish the Register would grow a little backbone and show some objectivity.
Re:Doesn't really matter, does it? (Score:3, Interesting)
iTunes.ca is next (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple goes after iTunes.ca [itunes.ca] cybersquatter.
On deck -- itunes.ca (Score:4, Interesting)
It's clear in this case because the registry was on 2003/05/01
Come on people -- both of these guys ran out and grabbed this site and they just point to their flybynight sites. Is this really what the internet is about -- registering everything you can think of and pointing it at your piece of crap website?
This isn't some kid registering the site to talk about his favourite music store (that only recently started working in Canada ...)