December 16, 2009

Get Lyrical - Italian & Spanish + Legal

The Good news:
Since the last news posting versions 3.4 and 3.5 of Get Lyrical have added Italian and Spanish localizations respectively (and thanks to Vincenzo Boiano and Israel López Fernández respectively!). That brings the total language count up to four. (And I hear through the grapevine that French may be coming soon - we'll see!)

The Bad news:
I've received word from the lawyers of TuneUp Media (makers of TuneUp) that SP is infringing on their trademark for "AUTOMAGICALLY" (SP's 2nd ever C&D – woohoo!). You may note from Get Lyrical's description page that it:

"Auto-magically adds lyrics to songs in iTunes from lyrics.wikia.com."
If you take a look at the letter, you'll see that TuneUp claims to have begun using the term in December 2008. A quick search of the USTPO shows that they filed for the term in January 2009 ... oh, and the trademark was published for opposition at the beginning of the month*.
TuneUp can – forgive me, I don't know the legal term – suck it; not only have I been using "Auto-magically" since at least 2005, I know that a number of my actual competitors use the term as well. Oddly enough, I was recently thinking of changing this description. But now that I've gotten this ridiculous claim, I think GL may just have to be auto-magic for the indefinite future. (We'll see though, the TuneUp lawyers have given me until the 22nd to respond.)

*For those of you not keeping track, it is December 2009.

1 comment:

whostoletheshow said...

You should go ahead and contact a trademark attorney and file for opposition before they get the mark. If they get the mark, you'll have to file for cancellation, which is more expensive and time consuming. If you know of others using the mark already, perhaps you can go in together and split the costs.