Hey everyone,

You all know that I'm not an alarmist when it comes to Apple
conspiracy theories -- in fact, I lean more towards being an Apple fan
in podcasting than a hater. So when I say that the following is
outrageous and may be hazardous to the podcast community, I'm not just
blowing smoke.

Many of you know that I do some contracting work for Podcast Ready.
And they have a cool little podcatcher that lives on MP3 players
called myPodder. In conversation with Russell Holliman, I learned
that they received a cease-and-desist letter from Apple on both
"myPodder" and "Podcast Ready".

Why? Because Apple claims rights on both "iPod" and "Pod," and they
say that both marks "consists in substantial part of Apple's IPOD
mark, and contain Apple's POD mark in its entirety."

This isn't rumor. I've seen the letter from Apple's lawyer. In the
letter, Apple says things like: "Moreover, the term POD has also been
adopted and used extensively in the marketplace by consumers as an
abbreviation to refer to Apple's IPOD player." (Um... It has? I've
never heard it used that way.) They claim "pending U.S. applications
for both IPOD and POD," and that "Apple also owns international
registrations and applications for POD."

Later in the letter, they claim: "While Apple, of course, has no
general objection to proper use of the descriptive term 'podcast' as
part of a trademark for goods and services in the podcasting field, it
cannot allow marks that go beyond this legitimate use and infringe on
Apple's rights in POD and IPOD."

This story's already been covered by Wired, although the piece has a
couple of inaccuracies:
http://blog.wired.com/music/index.blog?entry_id=1561308

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first cease-and-desist I've
heard about from Apple for instances of "pod" or "podcast" in the
podcasting sphere. (As opposed to product names that actually
contained "iPod," such as iPodder and iPodderX -- I'm actually on
Apple's side in those cases.) They say they're not interested in
shutting down the word 'podcast,' just infringements on their "POD"
mark -- but if that's the case, why object to the company name Podcast
Ready? And why do they even *have* a "POD" mark? There is no "pod"
product, and no one calls iPods "pods" in common use.

I'm not going to rant deeper on this right now, although it's
certainly got my heat up. You all can form your own opinions. I'm
just bringing the news. I will note (as I've said before) that a
cease-and-desist, by itself, doesn't mean that a lawsuit is imminent.
These things often go out on autopilot, just so the company can claim
later that it's defending its trademark if it has to later on. But
this particular letter had other information in it that seemed to
indicate that they had researched Podcast Ready pretty carefully, and
even might have had intelligence on Podcast Ready plans that weren't
public at the time the letter went out.

Russell is under instructions from his lawyer not to engage in further
public comment, but I'm just a contractor, and unconcerned about the
consequences to me personally. I'm more worried about what it might
mean to *all* of us.

--
Have Fun,
Steve Eley (sfeley@...)
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
http://www.escapepod.org