1978: apple computer comes into existence, is immediately sued by apple corps for trademark infringement
they eventually come to the agreement "apple computer promises not to make music if apple corps promises not to make computers
1989: apple computers starts to design sound effects for its new operating system. jim reekes - the employee hired to make them originally calls the first one "chime", but is told by the legal department that he can't call it anything even remotely musical or they'll get sued by the fucking beatles again
legal also shoots down "let it beep"
in response, jim instead names the sound "sosumi" (i.e., "so sue me"), and lies to the legal department that its a word in japanese
this time he gets away with it and the sound effect is put into every single apple computer sold
2020: for the big sur operating system, the display name for the sound is changed to "sonumi", but the actual file is still "sosumi.aiff" and is still on every laptop and desktop computer
in 2003, apple corps once again sued apple computers for the existence of itunes, which breaches a more specific amendment to their contract that apple computers can't make or sell music
apple corps loses the lawsuit in 2006, but neil aspinall refuses to give in. eventually they settle, with apple computers agreeing to pay out $500 million USD
in order to avoid bad press over this, steve jobs makes multiple beatles references during his 2007 conference speech, including quoting "two of us" in reference to his relationship with bill gates
all this also led to the BBC news "guy goma incident", where instead of interviewing a tech journalist about the lawsuit, they accidentally pulled a random guy from the congo off the street who didn't realize this wasn't his job interview until he was on live TV and decided to just fake his way through
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
