When Carl Sagan sued Apple twice (2014)

https://www.engadget.com/2014-02-26-when-carl-sagan-sued-apple-twice.html

by QuarkForMrMark • 4 years ago

108 67 4 years ago

engadget.com

gjsman-1000• 4 years ago

Suing over an internal code name (not a marketing name?) Quite a stretch...

IncRnd2• 4 years ago

The name must have been used externally, or Carl Sagan wouldn't have known about it.

google234123• 4 years ago

It got leaked?

CharlesW• 4 years ago

From TFA: “When these internal codenames were first revealed in a 1993 issue of MacWeek, Sagan was concerned that the use of his name might be misconstrued as an official endorsement.”

thayne• 4 years ago

But then they refused to acknowledge that he had not endorsed their product and had not received compensation after the name was revealed. While probably not illegal, IMO that was still morally wrong.

duxup2• 4 years ago

and had not received compensation after the name was revealed

Not sure anyone is entitled to compensation just because a codename is their name.

emsign2• 4 years ago

For someone like Carl Sagan his name is his most valuable asset. His reputation was being toyed with without his consent by a much more powerful entitity than him. He used the only defensive that the US is providing to individuals like him, that's the legal system. Apple's reaction confirmed their total disregard for his reputation and thus his source of income.

I find it shameful to suggest the weaker opponent the one who has been wronged by a bigger corporation or celebrity should always shut up and leave the more powerful entitity do what they want. I find that disgraceful.

ycombinete• 4 years ago

Unless there's something missing from the article, Sagan comes out of this looking, to me, like a bit of a BHA

Shorel• 4 years ago

Then keep it internal.

As soon as it was published in an article, it was no longer internal, just a code name.

MontagFTB• 4 years ago

I’d heard it differently from some at Apple at the time.

The three code names were all in the category of “bogus science,” and the association of Sagan with Piltdown Man and Cold Fusion was more of a jab turned insult. The “billions and billions” rationale sounds like an attempt to walk things back.

ikt• 4 years ago

Why would he be associated with bogus science?

iratewizard• 4 years ago

Purely a guess, but a lot of people whose pride stems from understanding complex subjects are the same people who will gatekeep that subject. Sagan, making astronomy more accessible to lay people, would be a grave offense to someone like that.

bigjimmyk3• 4 years ago

Interesting that the article didn't mention the oddly named "sosumi" system sound.

UncleSlacky• 4 years ago

That was to do with the agreement they'd previously made with Apple (the Beatles' company) not to be involved in anything relating to sound/music (to preserve the differentiation between two companies with the same name), it was a kind of dare or challenge.

JKCalhoun4• 4 years ago

Apple (the Beatles' company)

Apple Corp is usually the way I distinguish the two.

duxup2• 4 years ago

Apple changed the codename

As someone who worked at a company that would do that AND engineers would reference that product by new or old code names, or class of products (yet another code name), or components of products (another name)…..by any number of code names…. that line made me shudder.

I hated keeping track of all those codenames.

yjftsjthsd-h• 4 years ago

Not even just code names; I worked at a place that had rebranded both the company and products multiple times, so source code for com.companyA.productA was deployed to server production-productB-01 and served to customers as productC.companyC.com. They had dozens of products, many of which had been acquired from smaller companies over the years and intermittently rebranded. There was a spreadsheet that helpdesk used to try and route support tickets, listing as many names as they knew and who had last admitted to knowing anything about the product. The spreadsheet was nowhere near comprehensive. The whole thing was wild.

Reason077• 4 years ago

Apple today is starting to remind me a bit of the Apple of the early 1990s.

Gone are the simple product portfolios where each model has a clear position and purpose within the line up. Now, the number of models is creeping up gradually with more and more overlap and less clarity of purpose between them.

Dracophoenix• 4 years ago

If Apple is repeating the 90s, maybe it will finally bring back Mac clones and Pink/Taligent/Copland.

ksec• 4 years ago

The whole iOS is becoming more Android Like with every version.

Tim Cook's Apple may be very successful, but I will argue it is not a better Apple. And as the Steve Jobs in Private of the Silicon Valley, being better matters.

KerrAvon2• 4 years ago

The difference is that Apple today has the volume to support the (smaller amount of, let’s be clear) differentiation. And while it’s less clear than it was in, say, 2001, each of these things probably has an audience.

JKCalhoun4• 4 years ago

A victim (again) of its success? Perhaps.

Jobs famously pared the Macs down to laptop/desktop and pro/consumer to create a grid of four platforms (of course this predates phones, watches, ipads...).

I suspect Jobs was over-correcting because he had to, because Apple was floundering. But the model matrix for the Macs are not a lot bigger than Job's 2 x 2 minimalist stable.

stevenjgarner• 4 years ago

Reminiscent of Sosumi, the famous Mac alert sound inviting a lawsuit from the Beatles [1]

[1] https://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/sosumi-the-famous-mac-ale...

cosmiccatnap• 4 years ago

Ah apple, often times thought incorrectly to be less evil than Microsoft or Google but has, in time been just as shameless as either in their own "apple-y" way

mistrial9• 4 years ago

four decades is a long time; there have been cultural shifts and economic changes.. some people at Apple just do their job, others are certainly comic book level obnoxious

JKCalhoun4• 4 years ago

The malfeasance in Apple's case rests on a few engineers that were flipping the bird (perhaps just at much at Apple upper management as much as at Carl Sagan). A bit of a stretch to make this a "corporate policy" of the likes of Microsoft or Google.

jcranberry• 4 years ago

Terrible behavior from Apple. Like petulant children.

kloch2• 4 years ago

One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase "butt-head."

But one does seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrases "crackpot" or "crank", which are not very far from "butt-head"

So while I think the ruling was correct in that the average person would not take the insult seriously, I can see why Sagan might have taken it seriously.

NateEag2• 4 years ago

IMO, "crackpot" and "crank" are quite far from "butthead".

The first two communicate precisely what you've described, and are a significant charge to level at a scientist.

The last is a playground insult, meaning only "I don't like you" or "I think you're mean."

kloch2• 4 years ago

I actually agree with you there. I was just trying to imagine a scenario where it made sense from Sagan's perspective.

fastaguy88• 4 years ago

I find it so interesting that most of these comments criticize Apple. For me, the article suggests that Carl Sagan deserved some of the scientific criticism he received -- that he was more of a showman than scientist. He certainly did not seem to have much of a sense of humor, a bad trait for someone with such a large but fragile ego. (If Apple had switched to TSA -- thin skinned astronomer -- rather than BHA, would he still have sued?)

The idea that his "name" was a "brand" that had some commercial value is a joke. I don't think Johnny Carson was dropping his invites because of an Apple internal code name.

leephillips• 4 years ago

“Billions and billions” was never Sagan’s catchphrase and he never said it on his show, because it would be stupid.

phendrenad2• 4 years ago

Seems like both sides are villains here. Apple is a villain for initially refusing to release a statement saying "Carl Sagan does not endorse our product". Carl Sagan is a villain for suing when they changed the codename to "Butt-Head Astronomer".

(Aw crap, am I going to be sued by the Carl Sagan estate for calling him a "villain"?)

IG_Semmelweiss• 4 years ago

>>> Presumably not wanting to engage Sagan in a string of legal proceeding

I had to read that 3 times. I read that sentence as a Corporation... not wanting to settle with lucifer himself....

When Carl Sagan sued Apple twice (2014)

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