Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia
corporation, founded in January
1968 by
British rock band The Beatles, to replace their earlier company Beatles Ltd. and to form a conglomerate. Its chief division (and the only profitable one) is
Apple Records, which was launched in the same year. Other divisions included
Apple Electronics,
Apple Films,
Apple Publishing, and
Apple Retail, whose most notable venture was the ill-fated
Apple Boutique in
London. Its managing director is former Beatles road manager (and accountancy student)
Neil Aspinall. Apple's headquarters, in the late-
1960s, was at 3
Savile Row in London, known as the Apple Building, which was also home to the Apple Studio.
The Beatles' accountants had informed the group that they had a large amount of capital which they could either invest in a business venture, or else lose it to the
tax man[. 'Our accountant came up and said, We got this amount of money. Do you want to give it to the government or do something with it?" So we decided to play businessmen for a bit, because we've got to run our own affairs now. So, we've got this thing called 'Apple' which is going to be records, films, and electronics - which all tie up.' John Lennon, Beatles interview on The Tonight Show, 14 May, 1968. (link)] In addition to providing an umbrella to cover the Beatles' own financial and business affairs, Apple was intended to provide a means of financial support to anyone in the wider world struggling to get 'worthwhile' artistic projects off the ground
[Lennon: 'It's a company we're setting up, involving records, films, and electronics, and - as a sideline - manufacturing or whatever. We want to set up a system where people who just want to make a film about anything, don't have to go on their knees in somebody's office. Probably yours.'Said Paul McCartney: 'It's just trying to mix business with enjoyment. We're in the happy position of not needing any more money. So for the first time, the bosses aren't in it for profit. We've already bought all our dreams. We want to share that possibility with others.'Beatles press conference, announcing the launch of Apple, 1968 (link)]. It was pitched to the world's media by
John Lennon and
Paul McCartney as an attempt at 'Western Communism'. The company name originated with McCartney, coming from a
René Magritte painting he'd acquired; 'Apple "Core" (Corps)' was a play on words all the Beatles enjoyed. The ubiquitous logo was designed by
Gene Mahon, with illustrator
Alan Aldridge transcribing the
copyright notice to appear on record releases.
The first two years of the company's existence coincided with a sharp decline in personal relations within the Beatles, ultimately leading to the break-up of the band in
1970. Apple quickly slid into financial chaos, which was only resolved after many years of litigation. When the Beatles' partnership was dissolved in
1975, dissolution of Apple Corps was also considered, but it was decided to keep it going, while effectively retiring all its divisions. The company exists today, mostly performing as the
licensing agent for Beatles-related products, and supervising reissues of Apple Records, plus new issues of Beatles recordings and related media. The company is apparently now owned by Apple Corps SA (a Swiss company), and its company secretary is listed as Standby Films Ltd., believed to be a vehicle of managing director Neil Aspinall. The company is currently headquartered at 27 Ovington Square, in London's prestigious
Knightsbridge district.
Apple Corps has had a long history of
trademark disputes with
Apple Computer.
Apple Corps operated in various fields, mostly related to the music business, through a number of subsidiaries.
Apple Electronics
Apple Electronics was the electronics division of Apple Corps, originally founded as Fiftyshapes Ltd., and headed by Beatles associate
Magic Alex (alias Yanni Alexis Mardas).
Intending to revolutionise the consumer electronics market, largely through products based on Magic Alex's unique (and as it turned out, commercially impractical) designs, the company never made any breakthroughs. Even a planned apple-shaped radio could not be produced at a competitive price, and was ultimately beaten out by
Panasonic's 'ball and chain' radio.
After the dismissal of Magic Alex in 1969, during
Allen Klein's 'housecleaning' of Apple Corps, Apple Electronics fell victim to the same forces that troubled the company as a whole, including the impending Beatles breakup.
While it never made a dent in the marketplace, Apple Electronics was still considered a viable business entity years later, when Apple Corps and
Apple Computer went into litigation.
Apple Films
Apple Films was the filmmaking division of Apple Corps. Notable releases included
Born To Boogie,
Ringo Starr's 1972 documentary about the band
T. Rex;
Concert For Bangla Desh by
George Harrison And Friends (1972); and
Son of Dracula, a 1974 horror-musical which teamed Starr with singer
Harry Nilsson.
Apple Publishing
Apple's
music publishing arm predated even the record company. One of the first artists on its publishing roster was the group
Grapefruit. Apple published the group's self-penned songs from early 1968, though Grapefruit's records were mostly released on RCA.
Apple Publishing Ltd was also used as a publishing stop-gap by
George Harrison and
Ringo Starr, as they sought to shift control of their own songs away from
Northern Songs, in which their status was little more than paid writers. (Harrison later started
Harrisongs, and Starr created
Startling Music.)
Probably Apple's greatest publishing successes were the
Badfinger hits, "No Matter What" and "Day After Day", as well as "Without You", also penned by Badfinger's
Pete Ham and Tom Evans, and later a massive hit for
Harry Nilsson and
Mariah Carey. Apple also undertook publishing duties, at various times, for other Apple artists, including
Yoko Ono,
Billy Preston, Doris Troy, and the
Radha Krsna Temple. In 2005, Apple lost the US publishing rights for the work of Ham and Evans.
[Dan Matovina, Badfinger biographer and representative (link)]Apple Records and Zapple Records
Main article: Apple Records
.
From 1968 onwards, new releases by The Beatles were issued by
Apple Records, although the copyright remained with EMI, and Parlophone/Capitol catalogue numbers were used. Other Apple releases, however, used a new set of numbers, and the copyrights were mostly held by Apple Corps Ltd. Unlike a mere 'vanity label', Apple Records developed an extremely eclectic roster of their own, releasing records by artists as diverse as Indian sitar guru
Ravi Shankar, Welsh easy listening songstress
Mary Hopkin, the power-pop band
Badfinger, classical music composer
John Tavener, soul singer
Billy Preston, the
Modern Jazz Quartet, and even London's
Radha Krsna Temple. A shortlived subsidiary,
Zapple Records, was intended to release
spoken word and
avant garde records, but folded after just two releases: John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
Life with the Lions, and George Harrison's
Electronic Sound.
Apple Retail
Main article: Apple Boutique
.
The
Apple Boutique was a
retail store, located at 94
Baker Street in
London,
England, and was one of the first business ventures made by the fledgling Apple Corps. The store opened on
December 7,
1967, and closed its doors for the last time on
July 30,
1968.
Apple Studio
Apple Studio was a
recording studio, located in the basement of the Apple Corps headquarters at 3
Savile Row.
Originally designed by Magic Alex (of Apple Electronics), the initial installation proved to be unworkable, with almost no standard studio features (such as a
patch bay, or a
talkback system between the studio and the
control room, let alone Alex's promised innovations), and had to be scrapped. The Beatles recorded (and filmed) portions of their album
Let It Be in the Apple Studio, with equipment borrowed from
EMI, and during takes they had to shut down the building's central heating (also located in the basement), because of the lack of
soundproofing.
Redesigning and rebuilding the basement to accommodate proper recording facilities took eighteen months, and necessitated ‘floating' the townhouse; a difficult engineering task. The work was completed in 1970 and 1971, and the rebuilt studio (including its own natural
echo chamber) offered a wide range of recording and mastering facilities, and could turn out mono, stereo and
quadrophonic master tapes and discs. In 1971, it would have cost £37 an hour to record to 16 track, £29 an hour to mix to stereo, and £12 to cut a 12" master.
The studio became a second home for
Apple Records artists (though they also used
Abbey Road and other studios), and other artists such as
Harry Nilsson,
Wishbone Ash,
Viv Stanshall,
Lou Reizner,
Clodagh Rodgers,
Kilburn and the High Roads, and
Marc Bolan (as shown in the movie
Born To Boogie) also worked there; the existence of acetates by numerous performers is evidence the studio was widely used.
When the disbanded Beatles finally moved their offices away from Savile Row in the mid-1970s, the studio was closed permanently.
In 1978, Apple Records filed suit against
Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit settled in 1981 with an amount of $80,000 being paid to Apple Corps. As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business. The case arose in 1989 again when Apple Corps sued, claiming Apple Computer's machines' ability to playback
MIDI music was a violation of the 1981 settlement agreement. In 1991 another settlement of around $26.5 million was reached.
[news.com: Apple vs. Apple: Perfect harmony?][Transcript of full judgement in the 2006 case. The Times, 8 May 2006 ([1])] In September 2003 Apple Computer was sued by Apple Corps again, this time for introducing the
iTunes Music Store and the
iPod which Apple Corps believed was a violation of the previous agreement by Apple not to distribute music.
[legalzoom.com: Apple v Apple: What is at the core of The Beatles' Apple Records vs. Apple Ipod…] The trial opened on
March 29,
2006 in the UK
[Apple giants do battle in court] and in a judgement issued on
May 8,
2006, Apple Corps lost the case.
[Breaking news: "Apple Computer wins court battle with Beatles", Reuters, 8 May 2006 (link)][Brandle, L. "Apple Computer Triumphs In Beatles Case", Billboard, 8 May 2006 (link)]*
DiLello, Richard (
1973).
The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's Diary of the Beatles, Their Million-dollar Apple Empire and Its Wild Rise and Fall, Canongate Books Ltd. ISBN 1841956023.
*
Official site
