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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

xtunes Forced to Change Name, Appearance by Apple Lawyers 70

Posted by pudge from the predictable dept.
A user writes, "xTunes was an Open Source project that replicated much of the interface, functionality, and ease of use of iTunes. Apple's army of lawyers has forced them to change their name and redesign the interface." The new name of the project is sumi.
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xtunes Forced to Change Name, Appearance by Apple Lawyers More

xtunes Forced to Change Name, Appearance by Apple Lawyers

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  • Sumi? Sosumi! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <<xenex> <at> <opinionstick.com>> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @08:49AM (#4188429) Journal
    Hell, even their 'witty' name is ripping off the name Apple Computer came up with for a system sound after predicting a lawsuit from Apple Records [everything2.com].

    These guys at from the app-formerly-known-as-xtunes project need to learn a thing or two about originality!
    • closer observation reveals sumi sounds alot like "sue me", I think all their wit is perfectly intact.
      • it's come to my attention that they may have not realised the whole sosumi/beatles issue, so their wit is lacking.. hehe it's still good. At least they didn't call it BHA.
        • I think I wrote this [slashdot.org] just as you were posting that...

          Sosumi was cool the first time. It's not cool anymore; it's been done.
      • I think all their wit is perfectly intact.

        My point is that the app-formerly-known-as-xtunes people couldn't even think up a good name themselves, and instead stole a decade-old jab at Apple Records.

        It's not even their wit! They stole it from the company they're trying to use it against!
      • closer observation reveals sumi sounds alot like "sue me", I think all their wit is perfectly intact.

        The poster realizes that. That's why he noted their name was "witty".

        He was pointing out that name and the "wit" that inspired it was an imitation of Apples system sound sosumi (So sue me) that was Apples jab at Apple Records which sued them over the name "apple" but their suit failed because at the time Apple computers couldn't (or couldn't very well) record music. When Apple added that ability they also added the "so sue me" sound.
        • You missed that Sosumi is also the only Apple system sound that is a sample of a musical instrument.
        • hmm i'm not sure who is modding everyone up, but they need to realise that the last few people have said almost exactly the same thing.

          Their wit that I am trying to express, is to rip off one apple trademark with another, not just any apple idea, but the one that stood for a smart-alec response to a settled lawsuit. It's apple with a taste of their own old-stagnated medicine.

    • I rather think that the similarity was the point. What, you don't find it funny?

      I mean, that's a rather effective use of irony...
    • ..."ex-tunes."

  • great name (Score:3, Informative)

    by babbage ( 61057 ) <cdevers@cis . u s o u t hal.edu> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @08:57AM (#4188490) Homepage Journal
    "sumi"? Wow, that's even better than BHA!

    See, several years ago, Apple used Sagan [ogi.edu] as a codename for one of their prototype systems, after the well-known astronomer Carl Sagan. After they got sued for using the namee without his permission, engineers started calling their prototype BHA instead -- as in, "Butt Head Astronomer". :-)

    I like the way the Sumi people are tweaking Apple back now... :-)

    • And then, of course, they added the system sound "Sosumi". What, you thought that was an actual instrument?

    • Sagan (Score:4, Informative)

      by overunderunderdone ( 521462 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @10:26AM (#4189068)
      After they got sued for using the name

      It was more than just using his name without permission. All the code names for that generation of computers were named for scientific hoaxes: Cold Fusion, Piltdown Man, and Sagan. Something of a slight of Sagan's work ;)

      As you mentioned when Sagan sued they changed the name to BHA (Butt Head Astronomer) and when he sued yet again the changed the name to LAW (Lawyers Are Wimps)

      Unfortunately xTunes/sumi is not all that witty because it is just as unoriginal as Apple is claiming their product is. Apple has a system sound named Sosumi (So sue me) to tweak Apple Records of Beatles fame which had sued them over the name "Apple". Apple won the suit because at the time you couldn't do sound recording on an Apple computer. When Apple included that ability they included the sound Sosumi. It seems to me a decent part of wit is originality. The xTunes folks are coming across as the bore at a party which finds the same old joke hilarious every time he repeats it.

      • Re:Sagan (Score:3, Funny)

        by jbolden ( 176878 )
        They should have held their guns on BHA. In court Carl Sagan would have had to prove by preponderance of the evidence that:

        1) He not a butt head
        2) That fact was known by Apple at the time

        Apple could have had quite a laugh as Sagan tried to establish legal criteria for being a butt head and showing that he did not meet them.

  • The real issue here? (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by psicE ( 126646 )
    Watson should immediately sue Apple, for "look-and-feel" violations regarding the new Sherlock.

    The outrage here is not that Apple did this in the first place. That's to be expected; Apple makes its fortunes with look-and-feel, and of course it will sue anyone who tries to take that away. But when Apple does the opposite... why does no one call them on it?
    • Actually, Watson was a rip off of Sherlock. Sherlock came first. That is why the watson people can't really complain. Apple kind of just took it back. And xTunes was utter shit anyways. Dreadful at best. Who cares.
    • apple should have originally sued watson for taking the look & feel of sherlock
    • WATSON SHOULD SUE MAC COZ THEY RIPPED EM OFF!!!!1

      Look, the company is called Karelia [karelia.com], not 'Watson'.

      Yes, Apple almost certanly took a whole lot of ideas for Sherlock 3 from Watson, however Watson also was inspired by Sherlock 2.

      Besides, Karelia may get their own back: they are pondering a Windows port [karelia.com].
    • Watson should immediately sue Apple, for "look-and-feel" violations regarding the new Sherlock.


      The outrage here is not that Apple did this in the first place. That's to be expected; Apple makes its fortunes with look-and-feel, and of course it will sue anyone who tries to take that away. But when Apple does the opposite... why does no one call them on it?


      Because they're Apple.

      You want to take on a Co as big as they are?

      Also, Apple offered the Watson developer a job. They were aware that the two were converging. They are not entirely heartless.

      As Phil Schiller said though, Watson originally was bourne out of Sherlock - searching through the web (Sherlock plugins) for items of interest. Watson "stole" from Apple first, if you want to take that line.

      -- james

    • why does no one call them on it?


      This is why (quoting from TEX9's page):


      We showed the letter to several lawyers and concluded that our desire to keep the name xtunes and its current interface is much less than the time and money it would cost to try to do it.


      Boy, does this suck.

      I agree the "xtunes" name is an "iTunes" rippof, but giving up on it just because you don't have the money is sad.

      -silent

    • According to Think Secret, Apple's head of MacOS X software development admitted that they were already in the midst of developing Sherlock 3 when Watson was first released. Given that Apple didn't want to throw away the money they had already invested in Sherlock 3, and didn't want to spend more money licensing Watson, they didn't have much choice other than to continue working on S3 and ignoring Watson.

      Despite what Karelia would like to believe, Apple didn't "rip them off"; Watson just happened to be following a path Apple was already taking. And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.

      • And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.

        You should check out what Arstechnica has to say about this. And the reason the Watson programmer didn't take up the offer. They sure feel that they were ripped off.

  • Maybe the X Consortium should sue Apple (Score:4, Funny)

    by JimR ( 101182 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @09:55AM (#4188839) Homepage

    I can cope with Apple being a bit miffed about someone cloning their interface, but complaining about the name "xtunes" seems a bit rich coming from the company that called used exactly the same symbol (although not name) for their operating system as a popular and well established window system - X.

    They also seem to be in a habit of calling their products after popular Unix programs that have been around for years - consider "Xserve" only only one letter short of "Xserver", and "eMac" is only one letter short of "emacs". Maybe their next product will be called "gre", "Linu" or "Mozill".

    From someone who remembers when ical [rpmfind.net] was a Tk/Tcl application.

    • Answers. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      'X' is 10. I don't think it's called the Ten Window System. Ten11 is a silly name too.

      'eMac' is 'education Mac'. Besides, 'eMac' is different then 'emacs'. Everyone knows that any decent UNIX is case sensitive (I run OS X on UFS).

      'Xserve' is obviously short for 'Mac OS X Server'. Don't expect me to explain why it's not pronounced "TenServe" though.

      As for iCal, Apple created the i[insert name here] format of naming. They have a supreme right over it.

      Any more questions? :P
      • As for iCal, Apple created the i[insert name here] format of naming. They have a supreme right over it.

        How stupid was that, ical existed long before any of the Apple iApps. If they have a supreme right over naming, they should send their lawyers to at least 100 current mac developers for breach of naming rights (check VT for more info).

        I was disgusted to see how they use their corporate power against open source developer that actually makes crappy software that nobody is using, but anyway, shame on you Apple
    • There is no way in hell you can argue that xTunes isn't a (pathetic) attempt at an iTunes rip off. Thats what the issue is about here, so don't try and pretend like the xTunes guys aren't trying to bite off apple here.
    • (Forgive the bad pun.) First of all, I don't claim that this is A Good Thing, but I don't claim it isn't. That said, your examples (Xserver, emacs...) are without merit. Let me explain.

      iTunes - Music playing, sorting, ripping application with exceptional searching and playlist functionality etc...

      xtunes - Music playing, sorting, ripping application with searching and playlist functionality.

      Similar name AND similar functionality(?) of product.

      Xserve - A rack-mountable G4 with the intended use of being a server.

      Xserver - An open-source window server for *nix(es).

      eMac - An iMac-ish computer originally aimed at Educational institutions - hence the 'e' - I think you can figure out where the 'Mac' comes from.

      emacs - A text editing program.

      See the difference? Similar names, completely different product functionality.
      • BAH! Rather then try and make something original, the xTunes project just copied pre-existing software. This is the problem with thing like KDE, the GIMP, etc. They're just bad imitations of good software. The open source community has an opportunity to make innovative software, instead they seem hell bent of making clones of windows software and poor copies of mac stuff.
  • Why not change the name of their software to "Apple Computer Corporation". Really give them something to whine about.

  • Where's the "forced" part? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by droleary ( 47999 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @11:15AM (#4189425) Homepage
    It sounds like they got a simple cease-and-desist saying "It seem like a lot of what you have is derived from our product and we'd like you to make changes." They agreed and made changes. It's not like they defended the thing in court and lost. Apple may have been the bully, but these guys are the ones who just gave them their lunch money instead of making them fight for it.
  • Rhythmbox [rhythmbox.org] is coming along quite nicely, and the authors were wise in not using a name that could potentially cause problems (especially after the killustrator incident).

    It's not ready for prime-time, but I hear it might be included in GNOME 2.2. So developers, if you like itunes-style playlist management, and like GNOME, try hacking on rhythmbox!
  • Apple announced that it is continuing its development of Sherlock 3 which is not at all similar in any way to any other program out there and steals no ideas or interface from anyone.

    Apple also unveiled a new campaign with its catchy new slogan: "Do unto others..."

    • Once again... (Score:2, Informative)

      by rjung2k ( 576317 )

      From an earlier SD post...

      According to Think Secret, Apple's head of MacOS X software development admitted that they were already in the midst of developing Sherlock 3 when Watson was first released. Given that Apple didn't want to throw away the money they had already invested in Sherlock 3, and didn't want to spend more money licensing Watson, they didn't have much choice other than to continue working on S3 and ignoring Watson.

      Despite what Karelia would like to believe, Apple didn't "rip them off"; Watson just happened to be following a path Apple was already taking. And considering that Apple was spending a lot of time playing up Watson (to the point of offering the programmer a job working for them), I think they behaved as well as could be expected.

  • ... think that this was so wrong of Apple. Looking at the screen shot of xtunes on their own webpage, the similarities are very striking, including the top bar (which copies nearly identically the top bar of iTunes... compare xtunes screenshot [freshmeat.net] to iTunes screenshot [akamai.net]).

    Apple did a nice thing by warning them first, instead of just taking out a full subpeona and outright attacking them. Maybe they could have done the really nice thing and not have lawyers do the contacting... but with lawyers, it's hard to ignore them and you know that they're most probably really from Apple, not some weirdo trying to scare you. That said, the similarities between the two are very striking, almost an pure copy outside some icon changes.

    Hopefully the sumi people can just let this pass and make some good changes to their interface. I must say, as an iTunes user, that there are bits of the interface which I wouldn't mind to see improved, including adding some additional buttons which I used quite frequently on my old MP3 player, Macast.

    -Jellisky
    • The question is, are UI designs protected in the first place? I would say no.
      • Actually you are wrong [fool.com].

        Apple is actually right in the cases where they are trying to defend their intelectual property, even though you - or the copycats - might think otherwise. Poor clones hurt Apple's image much like cheap bootlegs or fake clothes hurt the original brands.

        • Apple is actually right in the cases where they are trying to defend their intelectual property, even though you - or the copycats - might think otherwise. Poor clones hurt Apple's image much like cheap bootlegs or fake clothes hurt the original brands.

          How does this hurt Apple? Is there anyone out there who thinks that this product is from Apple?

  • Notes and Rhythms (Score:2, Interesting)

    by toddhisattva ( 127032 )
    I have never understood how Apple's Look-and-Feel lawsuits are substantially different from, for instance, a musician suing over Notes-and-Rhythms. The look and feel of software can take more work than the code and data (especially with GUIs), and are just as much parts of the product.

    Indeed, the objections to L&F suits stem from a Command Line Mentality, from a world without look and feel. Of course the critics think UI is trivial because they've never thought about it. stdin, stdout, stderr are all anyone really needs, right?

    It was the late 80s, and CLI was still the mainstay. It's obvious that the evil judge Vaughan Walker was stuck in the CLI mentality. Truly an exemplar of the saying, "what do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 80? 'Your Honor.'"

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