For the past two years a Des Moines bar has run iPod Monday, a gathering where patrons bring in their iPods and share playlists others in attendance. For two years, Clint Curtis, the event coordinator, has sent weekly updates to Apple and prior to the event he asked for permission. For two years, Apple remained silent.
Then one day Curtis quietly received an email from Apple ordering him to cease and desist iPod Monday. The letter read,
“Please choose a name for your product that is consistent with Apple’s guidelines (that does not include iPod or any other Apple trademark or variation thereon).”
I dunno about you guys, but I think this is pretty lame. The bar clearly wasn’t using an Apple trademark in any diabolical scheme for profit. It was a gimmick that ultimately advertised for Apple. Pretty stupid.
Sometimes Apple’s aggressive and persistent hunt for trademark and copyright enforcement “cuts off its nose to spite its face”. If Apple wants to keep its leading marketshare with the iPod, they must continue to develop and evolve communities…particularly in light of the paradigm shift that is currently occurring on the web (web 2.0) in social networking.
Coming soon: Zune Monday!
Meet in the telephone booth at 4th and Main…
I used to actually like apple. After this and the iphone skin issue I have lost complete respect for this company. They need to embrace these things, dont they realize this is free and great advertising.
On the flip side this bad publicity of them demanding everyone to stop using their name/images is ridiculous. Hey if you want to do free advertising for my company go for it.
They need a good butt kicking as their ego has grown out of control.
It might be that Apple doesn’t want people to think the iPod Monday thing is a regular event co-hosted by the company. Though, I think the bar can easily rename their share-your-playlist event to something else to appeal to the increasing number of Sandisk Sansa, Zen Zune owners. The bar could be losing business from these people who feel somewhat alienated in what seems like iPod-exclusive party.
Companies have to actively protect their trademarks. Otherwise they could loose them. It’s the law.
apple has to enforce they’re trademark – otherwise they’ll just be another kleenex or xerox… it’s unfortunate but that’s part of the requirements of maintaining a trademark. don’t do this and they could lose all trademark protection…
Ryan is right but two years of lapsed response, especially when they were made aware by the bar, is not actively protecting the trademark. Also, the trademark cease and desist should only be relevant to products and services that would interfere with Apple’s product services. Otherwise, Honda could send cease and desists to every “Civic” Theatre to change their name; Apple could sue grocers for advertising “Apples”, and Microsoft could take legal action against NBC for the “Office”. This is just another case of Apple maintaining a closed environment, disenfranchising its user base and falling prey to its own paranoia.
webonics, the difference is that those are english words, in which case trademark can only be enforced against products that might confuse the public (nobody confuses the Civic Auditorium for a car or a Braeburn apple for a computer). iPod is not like that, it’s a trademarked product name and nothing else. apple has to defend it or they lose it, even if it means going after obviously non-threatening cases like this one. lame, sure, but that’s the law.
Yes, Zune Tuesday or Zune Sunday will fit in there just nicely.
how are they going to lose their trademark from this? They can only benefit from the bar and they stopped it. It’s the ego thing.
Looks to me like some low-level lackey is assigned to surf the web for non-Apple uses of Apple trademarks, then sent an email automatically. I bet this is the kind of events that Apple Marketing loves: free advertising, brand recognition.