Magic Statistics

Closing arguments were heard yesterday in the latest round of legal battles between Apple Corps and Apple Computer.  Apple Corps, the company started by the Beatles in 1968, is asking a UK High Court judge to issue an injunction barring Apple Computer from displaying its apple logo with reference to sales of downloaded songs through iTunes Music Store (iTMS).  If the judge grants the injunction, Apple Corps will then seek damages from Apple Computer for copyright infringement.

Apple Corps has won two previous trademark lawsuits against Apple Computer.  This time, Apple Corps is claiming that Apple Computer has violated a 1991 agreement not to use the apple logo in connection with the sale of music.  Apple Computer denies any breach of the agreement.

During yesterday’s closing arguments, an Apple Computer attorney said that Apple Corps executives were given a full demonstration of iTMS, including its use of the apple logo, four months before the service was opened to the public, but raised no objections.

Earlier in the proceedings, lawyers for the two companies traded barbs.

[L]awyers acting on behalf of Apple Computer said "even a moron in a hurry" could see the difference between iTunes and a record label like Apple Corps, and the fact that Apple Computer distributed music didn't make it a record label.

"Data transmission is within our field of use. That's what [the 1991 trademark agreement] says and it is inescapable," said Anthony Grabiner, according to The Associated Press. No "reasonable person," he said, would assume that Apple Computer had created or owned the 3.5 million songs on its hugely successful iTunes music store.

Apple Corps' lawyer Geoffrey Vos pointed back to the original agreement, saying that Apple Computer's music distribution business "was flatly contradictory" to its terms. The areas that each company could operate in, with their respective apple trademarks, had been clarified, and Cupertino, CA-based company was now in violation.

This wrangle illustrates the huge impact that digital media have had on the entertainment industry since the Apple-Apple agreement was reached in 1991—the year before the World Wide Web was invented.  Fifteen years ago, no one saw any similarity between a data file and a song; but now a song can be, and is commonly treated as, just another data file.

Personally, I think Apple Computer has a tough sell here, but I’m not a lawyer.  Still, I would not be surprised if the decision does not wholly satisfy either company, but rather leads to yet another negotiated compromise.

The judge says he will hand down his decision before the end of this month.

Gene Pitney, one of the great pop singers of the 1960s, was found dead in his hotel room in Cardiff, Wales, yesterday morning.  He was in the midst of a British tour.

Gene Francis Alan Pitney was born on 17 February 1940 [see update below] in Hartford, Connecticut.  In the early and mid-1960s, he was one of the most successful pop artists in the world, with over 20 international hits.  First coming to prominence as a songwriter, he composed, among others, “Hello Mary Lou” (recorded by Rick Nelson), “Rubber Ball” (Bobby Vee),  and “He’s A Rebel” (The Crystals).  But it was a singer that he truly excelled.  His voice was unique and impossible to categorise.  Among his most popular hits were “Twenty-Fours Hours From Tulsa”, “Only Love Can Break A Heart”, “I’m Gonna Be Strong”, and “Town Without Pity”.  Although teen ballads typical of the time—full of angst, yearning, and not a little self-pity—Pitney’s remarkable voice made them special and memorable.  In that respect, his oeuvre has strong affinities with that of Roy Orbison.

Pitney recorded many songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and was among the first to bring Randy Newman compositions onto the charts.  He was also the first to cover a song by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard: his recording of “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday” made the North American charts in 1964, at a time when the Rolling Stones were still unknown over here.  He even recorded two albums with George Jones in 1965; their most popular song was “I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night”.

Gene Pitney was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

I was a big fan of his all those years ago, and bought many of his albums and singles.  My personal favourite of all his songs is 1961’s “Every Breath I Take”, his only chart success produced by Phil Spector.  One of the earliest full-blown examples of Spector’s wall-of-sound production, it is a dramatic masterpiece of doo-wop harmony singing behind Pitney’s soaring falsetto.

The hits stopped coming after 1968, with one spectacular exception.  In 1989, Marc Almond and he recorded a duet of “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”, which had been a small hit for Pitney as a solo recording in 1968.  The duet version went to number one in the UK.

His death was due to natural causes.  He is survived by his wife Lynne and three sons at his home in Connecticut.

His biography at AllMusic.com is posted here.

UPDATE (7 Apr.): Gene Pitney was actually born on 17 February 1940, not 1941 as I originally stated, so he was 66 when he died.  The confusion stems from the 1960s music business practice of reporting false birth dates so as to make performers appear younger than they really were, in hopes of increasing their appeal.