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Apple threatens legal action over Fuse silhouette ads

updated 09:25 am EDT, Fri July 23, 2004

Silhouette ads irk Apple


Apple is over new advertisements by upstart music channel Fuse that resemble ads for the iPod/iTMS, according to the New York Post: "Apple lawyers have been calling Fuse and threatening to sue unless the ads — which went up in outdoor locations in New York City on Monday — are taken down. Not only do the ads resemble Apple's iPod ads, but they also are quite risque...Apparently, Apple has received numerous calls from iPod users who have expressed outrage over the advertisements, a source said."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. sadmachine

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2004

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    07/23, 09:42am | report spam | Reply |

    Funny

    Here's one:
    http://www.brandweek.com/brandweek/photos/Fuse.jpg

  1. testudo

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    Joined: Aug 2001

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    07/23, 09:50am | report spam | Reply |

    Smack down!

    Woohoo! Catfight! Catfight!

    Oh, and it wasn't that funny of an ad. basically it tells me that the only way you can stomach watching fuse is by guzzling beer. (Of course, after seeing fuse, I think that's basically the audience they're going after).

  1. flask

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    Joined: May 2004

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    07/23, 10:26am | report spam | Reply |

    wow

    Thanks, sadmachine. Not only is the ad a direct ripoff of the iPod ads, it also includes "Watch different", obviously referring to Apple's old Think Different slogan. Fuse will probably try to defend themselves with the Fair-Use Doctrine, but I don't think this is quite satirical or humorous enough to be considered a parody. We'll just have to leave that to the courts (or a big cash settlement) to decide. For their sake, I hope they aren't dumb enough to claim it wasn't intentionally a ripoff, like GlobalPC tried to do with their 1984-ripoff commercial a few years ago.

  1. AllenHuffman

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    Joined: Dec 1999

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    07/23, 10:29am | report spam | Reply |

    OS-9 vs Mac OS 9

    It's not about who is right or wrong -- it's about who has the best lawyers. I mean, Fuse and Apple compete in entirely different markets, so surely they can never be confused, right? (Even though OS-9 was an operating system that ran on PowerPCs and did things like Java and IEEE-1394/"Firewire", and the Mac OS 9 was an operating system that ran on PowerPC and did things like Java and IEEE-1394/"Firewire", the end result was they were two different market segments and could not cause confusion...)

    Then Apple gets to say "well iPod owners are getting confused". comp.os.os9 was an old OS-9 newsgroup until Mac OS 9 came out, then it started getting posts from Mac users who obviously were confused, but Apple's lawyers got anything done on the internet thrown out as hearsay because those folks could not be proven to have actually said it -- were not present in court... So if they got e-Mails from iPod users...

    Anyway: point is, yes, that ad does look like an iPod ad, and I think it was done as an intentional parody thus "watch different". But Apple should easily win this. They rock in court.

  1. sadmachine

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    07/23, 10:44am | report spam | Reply |

    My opinion

    There have been numerous spoofs of this campaign. That's how you know it's been a success. I don't know if Apple ever took action against the others. Comedy Central had commercials with rednecks.

    The problem here is that these spoofs can be deemed offensive. Apple doesn't want to be associated with this. I would like to see the rest of the ads. I bet there are worse ones than this beer-guzzling version.

  1. rok

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    Joined: Mar 1999

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    07/23, 10:46am | report spam | Reply |

    re: fuse

    this is coming from the same company whose own staff shamed one of their own often enough to get him included on a "q**** eye," makeover, and every snippet comment from co-workers in between was some stupid 20-something dogging him on how he showed up for work looking the way he did.

    i applaud fuse for trying to be what made mtv popular back in the day, but this isn't the way to do it, and being @sses doesn't make you cool. it just makes you an @ss.

  1. z10n

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    Joined: Oct 2003

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    07/23, 10:58am | report spam | Reply |

    lame, but expected

    Apple positioned themselves at the center of pop culture. When you do that, you're bound to have people trying to make a mark by leeching off your success.

    Me personally, I think apple should give it a rest. I've never seen a Fuse ad, and I probably never will. If anything, the ad would remind me of apple instead of Fuse. If the ad is tasteless, then it only reflects poorly on Fuse, not Apple.

    Really, if customers are going to be confused, then they are going to be confused. There's too many damn products out there for them to all be completely distinct from each other. If you're too much of a moron to figure out the difference between Fuse and apple, then nobody here can help you.

    Of course apple isn't going to listen to me, so I might as well have not made the post. Brand name is half the reason macs sell at all.

  1. paulc

    Junior Member

    Joined: Aug 2000

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    07/23, 11:10am | report spam | Reply |

    I say...

    Much Ado About Nothing

  1. rok

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    Joined: Mar 1999

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    07/23, 11:12am | report spam | Reply |

    to be fair

    apple may not be one to throw stones here, as this campaign from toronto's station "the flow" predated the ipod campaign by at least a year.

    http://www.flow935.com/flowMedia/flowMedia.htm

    i'm not saying the flow should sue apple, i'm saying you can't copyright the idea of silhouettes against a colored background.

  1. koolkid1976

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    07/23, 11:29am | report spam | Reply |

    re: lame, but expected

    "If anything, the ad would remind me of apple instead of Fuse. If the ad is tasteless, then it only reflects poorly on Fuse, not Apple."

    The first thing that comes to your mind when you see that add is iPod and tastless. You see the familiar figures, color, and a guy holding a white device like an iPod. Before you have time to read the headline, your car already drove by. Now what's the probability of this reflecting bad on Fuse instead of Apple?

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