Beatles' Label Sues Apple

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The Beatles' London-based record label Apple Corps has sued Apple Computers for allegedly breaching an agreement that limits the technology giant's involvement in the music industry.

The record label first sued the computer maker shortly after Steve Jobs founded the company and named it in a tribute to the Beatles. The resulting settlement reportedly included a clause that Jobs' Apple wouldn't use its name to sell music. The label successfully sued the company again later when it began producing computers software and speakers that played music.

The current lawsuit, filed in London earlier this summer but only recently served to the California-based computer company, focuses on the hugely successful iPod digital music player and the iTunes Online Music Store, which legally sells prerecorded, copyrighted songs as MP3s for ninety-nine cents.

Apple Corps is jointly owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »

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