Geez… and I thought Apple was the cool computer company….
The Mac Daily News reports that a sex shop in the UK is selling the iGasm, a little toy that attaches to the iPod and is intended to provide music-driven genital stimulation. Ann Summers, the retailer describes the iGasm as follows:
Load up your iPod with killa choons and take your appreciation of music to a whole new level. This genius little device hooks up to your iPod, MP3 player, laptop or CD player and vibrates in sync with the beat. Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum and bass track or chill with the ambient classic. Just turn up the volume to increase the strength of the vibrations and believe us when we say that full whack is PHENOMENAL. And here’s a tip, you’ll make him the happiest man on the planet if you let him be DJ for the night.
The iPod attachment is displayed below:
Apparently, Apple is not disturbed by the name, nor by the fact that someone found a way to mate the iPod with a vibrator. However, the ad campaign for the iGasm is rubbing Apple’s lawyers the wrong way. Here is the ad that drew Apple’s ire:
Of course, this is all UK based, but when we threw the tea into Boston Harbor, we weren’t throwing their trademark law into the water along with their taxes. Nevertheless, I’ll just comment from a US perspective.
I can see Apple’s point. The silhouette and white cord has become a very distinctive source identifier for Apple’s products. On the other hand, there might be some interesting and creative fair use arguments.
One thing is for certain, with one “haughty” demand letter (as described on News of the World), I would imagine that Apple has just boosted sales of the iGasm to levels that Ann Summers never could have imagined.
