Apple Does NOT Own The Term “Podcast”
Yo Apple. Bite me! I really do like and respect you as a company. I love my iPod and can’t imagining not owning one.
I’m also an avid podcaster. I produce three podcasts: Accident Hash, Managing the Gray and The U-Turn Cafe. I started podcasting in late 2004. Have been doing it ever since.
Summer of 2005 iTunes comes along and releases support for podcasting. You showed it in the store. A huge new wave of people got exposed to podcasting. I thank you for doing that on one hand and hate you on the other, but I’m not going to get into that discussion right now.
Then today I read about you saying that you own the term “podcasting“ and I literally yelled at the computer when I saw it. I’ll give you that you have an argument perhaps to the term “pod.” I’m not a lawyer, but I could at least see your side on that one.
But, guess what? You did NOT create podcasting. You didn’t! The community built podcasting. I’m not going to get into who invented the technology or brought it mainstream because frankly that’s not the point right now. The point is that thousands of people around the globe took a technology and an idea and have built it up to the level it is today. The talent, the business, the creativity going into all of this is NOT the property of Apple, it’s the property of the people living, breathing and creating it.
I know very little about Podcast Ready. What I do know is that they are a sponsor of the upcoming Podcast Expo and I respect them because of that. I know that the individuals who started sites like Podcast Alley and Podcast Pickle did it because they loved what they were doing and saw an opportunity to help out the comunity. It’s people behind all of these, behind every podcast out there that own the word “podcast” not any single huge corporation.
So to all the Apple lawyers out there with nothing better to do then act like the complete sharks that you are I’m sickened by you. Find something better to do then waste everyone’s time going after something you were late to the game on. Yes you supported podcasting early, but did we ask or need you to come along? I had no problem with our world growing slower and more organicly and still don’t.
Go back to making prettty over priced computers. I like your products, but at the moment I truly hate your company!
September 24th, 2006 at 9:05 am |
IANAL, but I doubt all the brightest minds on marketing and branding will help. What you would really need is one half-decent mind that understands Trademark Law. He would look at the following facts.
1. Apple has Trademarked the term “iPod”.
2. People apparently use the term Podcast since it invovkes the idea of an iPod and creates stronger recognition than it otherwise would.
Trademark has to be vigorously defended or you lose it. If you allow anybody to use your trademarked terms without challenge, you lose the ability to challenge somebody else. Try calling it a CokeCast and see how long it takes before some lawyers from Atlanta give you a call. Not because they really care, but because if they don’t defend the infringement in one case, they lose the ability to defend it in any case.
Apple probably doesn’t care about 99% of Podcast content either, but it Podcast implies iPod and Apple support they need to distance themselves from content that others may find objectionable.
So… is iPod == Pod? Unless you can all really believe that it means something else (and I like Joe C’s idea), Apple may have a case.
September 24th, 2006 at 10:03 am |
Why aren’t they suing iRiver for using the little i- or has ee. cummings already sued Apple because he took the use of small i mainstream?
As a lawyer, I know this is about protecting market share and intellectual property, but it is stupid and self defeating because:
Brands should want to become so iconic they become a noun- Jello; Kleenex; Bandaid; Windex; ipod-
They all have the same things in common. They are the product, and the class of similar products-other brands don’t have the same consumer presence. No one calls an ipod an mp3 player, although it is. We all need a tissue, but we ask for kleenex. Podcasting takes advantage of itunes; most of us take advantage of itunes as a major source of distribution to ourselves and the masses, although other podcast aggregators work, too. A huge percentage of listeners get our shows through itunes- we are providing itunes with free content, and they should just be gracious about it.
I can see “iPodder” and “mypodder” crossing the line of possible infringement, but I doubt the term podcasting itself will make it as a trademark-I think I heard it was about to become a dictionary term. I’ll do some research, and maybe we can submit a friends of the court (Amicus) brief on behalf of Podcast Ready. I’ve done this before, and we should be able to do it- even as a loose “Trade Assocation” of podcasters, if the legal guys at Podshow aren’t already willing to do this.
Let me know- and I’ll unleash the legal research tools at my disposal.
September 24th, 2006 at 11:26 am |
But tell us how you really feel CC?
Corporations are in business to make money and dominate markets. Corporate lawyers are the “button men” in the corporate world.
Old story-new buzzwords.
September 25th, 2006 at 4:24 am |
[…] As mentioned in this wired blog and on various blogs (here, here and here), mailing lists and forums, Apple is laying claim to the term “pod” and has filed for trademark protection. Of course I think this is a bunch of crap and Im hoping that some big wigs at Apple pull off their lawyers from this terrible line of actions. […]
September 25th, 2006 at 12:47 pm |
I am a big Apple fan (heck got my own Mac related podcast) but I about went nuts over this. They do not own the term, they did not create it, it was created by of the podcast pioneers, and continues to be built into the publics mind with each new podcast comes out.
I have been podcasting for over a year, I got asked recently to speak to a group of Tech leaders here in Arizona this winter. About no less podcasting. Well I don’t claim to know everything about it so of course I have done my research to make sure I can answer all the questions. One thing was the real term for podcast: Portable On Demand Broadcast. I can’t see how Apple can win this one.
Can’t wait to see ya again at the Expo this week C.C!
September 25th, 2006 at 1:28 pm |
I’m just wondering if we are not allowed to go buy iGlasses from the optician anymore. iBet iWon’t be allowed to.
Maybe we should come up with a different name. I also like the idea that “pod” means “portable on-demand”.
Apple needs to get over themselves. This is just going to backfire on them, iFeel.
September 27th, 2006 at 6:03 am |
[…] Apple’s Cease and Desist letter to Podcast Ready Source: C.C. Chapman Company: Apple […]
September 27th, 2006 at 2:05 pm |
[…] Sites mentioned: ioda Promonet, Daily source Code, Brother Love,C.C’s Apple blog post, and an update from C.C. based on new info about the Apple/Podcast Ready situation, […]
September 28th, 2006 at 7:31 am |
They should call the people at Sony and ask about their legal walkman-battle. Or what about the aspirine history?
When a brand name being the proper name of a product, service or company becomes a common noun it means that your brand was able to get a first class seat in history. Your product has achieved the status of an icon. It actually became a part of a lot of people’s common sense (hence the label common noun) about the world.
We do photoshop our pictures now (we never ever say we microsoft photoedit our pictures) and we make podcast all the time. We did edit our pictures long before AdobePhotoshop and we did broadcast our audio on the web long before your iPods even exist. But people all over the globe “chose” to use your brand names to refer to these activities. In fact, your marketing departments, your engineers, your designers, your brandheroes made us choose these names to refer to these activities. The fact that we are using these terms in a general way is thus a sign of their marketing/branding/economic power. That’s something to be proud of!
So Applonies, don’t complain about your brand names being used in a more common way. You made us use them in this way.
I suggest these people at apple get in touch with some linguists who can explain them that language is something organic, growing and changing and adapting in a way which one can hardly control.
You can never get everlasting global and total control over the way people write, the way people think or the way people speak. You can give them directions (e.g. dictionaries, formalities, codes,…) and influence our speach very profoundly but that’s really it. It usually takes you a lot of years and a hell lot of blood, sweat, tears and money.
Still, these directions, rules and regulations can be very tight and strict. They can be enforced by some one with great economic, military, moral or political power. These people can make people change their language. Dominant languages are still whiping out dialects and other languages every single day.
By the way, who invented the word apple and allowed this company to “steal” it from our common language anyway. If they want to be consistent, they should sue the authors of the bible and of any other book containing the word apple.
What do you think?
October 1st, 2006 at 8:44 pm |
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August 2nd, 2007 at 2:23 pm |
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