Legal tumult over Aqua look
After receiving a notice from Apple's lawyers instructing it to cease and desist, the Web site Skinz.org on Thursday posted a modification of a controversial "skin" that can make Windows desktops resemble Aqua, the newly unveiled user interface for Mac OS X.
The WinAqua skin works with Stardock Corp.'s WindowBlinds interface-customization utility for Windows 95, 98 and NT. Stardock also received a notice from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) after the company's Web site posted the skin along with a screenshot highlighting its Aqua-inspired features.
According to Bryan Beretta, the administrator and one of the creators of Skinz.org, the original scheme uploaded to the site contained elements of Apple's trademarked logo for Mac OS X. Beretta said this was the core of Apple's "Notice of Infringement," which accused Skinz.org of making copyrighted materials available for download. "I can understand that," Beretta said. He added that if WinAqua's creator had relied on Mac OS X screenshots to build the scheme, that would also be an objectionable action.
The WinAqua skin currently posted on the Skinz.org site omits the disputed elements, said San Jain, CEO of Network Communications, which owns Skinz.org. "We ran [the revised scheme] by our attorneys, and it doesn't use any copyrighted material, according to our lawyers," he said.
Stardock's site currently carries a screenshot of the same modified WinAqua skin. "Our legal counsel said that a screenshot doesn't violate trademarks," Wardell said, "and we haven't heard back from Apple yet."
"Obviously, some kid saw Aqua [at Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld Expo/San Francisco] and copied it, then uploaded it to Skinz.org and our site," said Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Canton, Mich.-based Stardock. Wardell said after Apple contacted Stardock with the same legal notice it delivered to Skinz.org, "we sent them an e-mail saying that we took the skin down in five minutes.
"We pulled the skinz because they were using the Mac logo, and as software developers, we are sensitive to intellectual-property issues," Wardell added.
Skinz.org's Beretta said that on Jan. 11, Apple's legal representatives sent in their legal notice along with a "nasty" e-mail threatening to force the site's ISP to shut it down.
Copyright woes
This isn't the first time Apple has moved aggressively to address what it characterizes as copyright infringements. When various Web sites displayed images of a revised iMac before Apple officially announced the product, Apple sent out similar notices, claiming infringement of Apple's copyrights and disclosure of the company's trade secrets.
In other moves to protect against "look and feel" and trade-dress violations, Apple in 1999 sued computer manufacturers Daewoo, Future Power and eMachines for producing computers that resembled the iMac.
"To play it safe," Skinz.org's Beretta said, he also took down all of the site's 130 or so Mac-related skinz. On Tuesday, the site posted the message, "Please do not upload any Mac skinz any more as they will just be rejected. Apple has contacted us and wants all the Mac skinz removed, which means we obviously can't accept new ones either."
However, on Thursday the Skinz.org site posted the modified WinAqua skin that omits explicit reference to Apple or Mac OS X. The skin quickly became the most popular on the site, being downloaded over 9,000 times. By comparison, the second-most-popular skin drew fewer than 600 downloads.
"I'm not sure why [Apple gets] so upset," Beretta said. "The Mac look has always been very popular."
Apple declined to comment on the situation.
Wendy Mattson contributed to this report.