Steve Jobs informs MY iPhone they they are in need of a name change
As you know our man Vincent attended D5: All Things Digital yesterday. He had a blast, and not only did he get to watch Steve Jobs on stage, but he also was able to meet him and shake his hand. However his meeting didn't quite go as planned.
You probably know that Vincent also runs our sister-site MYiPhone. When he mentioned this to Jobs, he was kindly informed that he should change the name of the site to something that didn't contain the iPhone name, citing that "we have a team of lawyers to go after that kind of stuff." This of course took Vincent very much by surprise.
I've always had a lot of respect for Steve Jobs, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Perhaps he was trying to do Vincent a favor by telling him that their legal teams love to go after any sites that use one of their trademarks, not that he personally thought that it was wrong to use the iPhone name.
What is interesting is that Apple doesn't actually own the iPhone trademark, so we're not really sure how much legal action they can actually take against us. That's not the point though, what is upsetting is that they would consider shutting down a site that is in essence, doing them a favor by informing the world about everything related to the iPhone. We don't want a medal or anything for doing it, we're excited about the iPhone just like many other people. We just want to share our passion with everyone else without changing our name.
We know that Apple has shut other sites down for these same reasons, but what purpose does it serve? Why should we have to chose obscure names just to appease the companies that we're discussing? I'm curious how the rest of the blogging community feels about this?
Legal handshake with Steve Jobs: Apple lawyers will go after "my iPhone" name [via MYiPhone]