It’s no secret I’m not a huge fan of Apple. I’ve gone out of my way to never buy one of Apple’s products over the years — I was one of the few who had a Zune, and more recently, I’m one of the few who have a Windows 7 phone.
While this may just be avoiding one corporation by siding with another, some of Apple’s actions make me feel comfortable with this choice.
Beyond the reports of inhumane working conditions and underage labor, there have also been many cases of something not quite as dire, but which I find just as important: the issue of trademark and copyright.
Apparently, Apple has decided it can be the only company with anything resembling an apple in its logo, and will go to great lengths to enforce it. A few years back, Australian grocery chain Woolworth’s was threatened by Apple after it changed its logo — albeit to something no one would ever confuse with Apple’s — and the Australian intellectual-property regulators were pushed by Apple’s lawyers to ban the logo.
More recently, Apple went after a Chinese food company’s logo for the same reasons. It’s not only the larger companies which Apple has sent such threats or legal actions against. As of last month, Apple also sent a cease and desist letter to a small German café in Bonn called Apfelkind.
Beyond the fact many of these companies really don’t pose any threat to Apple and its “global image” — as they often cite for their reasons behind such actions — it would be hard to confuse any of these logos with one another. The only thing linking all these logos is the fact they contain an apple-like shape.
This all appears to stem from how Apple seems to believe it owns the image of its namesake fruit. Clearly such a thought is unrealistic and narcissistic, yet it doesn’t seem too far off from many claims involving intellectual rights, which are definitely a tricky situation.
As we’ve seen over the last decade, the rise of piracy has led to many concerns when it comes to copyright laws. Whatever the industry — movies, music, television — all of them want to make money for what they produce. Everyone needs to make money to live, so it’s not something for which they can be really faulted.
What many people, like me, have a problem with is the business that comes between the consumer and the artist. A large cut of any of the profits from music being sold goes to the record label, with many bands reportedly making roughly $23.40 for every $1,000.
Anyone should be able to see this is a problem.
While this doesn’t excuse pirating, it’s easy to see how it can help influence one to do so. But with this piracy has come a major crackdown in many parts of the world.
Whereas Napster may have once been the main target for copyright-protection lawsuits and the like, the most recent targets have been torrent hosting sites like piratebay.org.
Although music may have been all the main media shared illegally, technology now makes it incredibly easy for everything from video games to movies to even books to be pirated.
To help illustrate just how substantial this has become, there are now political parties that make this their main issue. The third-largest party in Sweden, the International Pirate Party, even gained two seats in parliament in the 2009 European Parliament elections.
Clearly, this is something which will only become a bigger and bigger issue as time and technology progress.
Whether it pertains to a company’s image in the world and what exactly belongs to it, or the ownership of media and its sharing, the intellectual rights debate will be one which will greatly affect how the Internet is used.
How radical a change this may be is something we should all keep our eyes on.
 
Zachary Davis is a 20-year-old history junior from Warsaw, Poland. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_zdavis.
 
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Contact Zachary Davis at [email protected]