Sosumi

Sosumi is one of the system sounds introduced in Apple Inc.'s Macintosh System 7 operating system in 1991, an extremely short sample of a xylophone, which gained notoriety in computer folklore as a cheeky response to a long-running Apple Corps v. Apple Computer trademark conflict. The sound has been included in all subsequent versions of Mac OS, including Mac OS X.

During the development of System 7, the two Apples concluded a settlement agreement from an earlier dispute when Apple added MIDI technology to the Macintosh. As a result, Apple Computer was prohibited from using their trademark on "creative works whose principal content is music".

When new sounds for System 7 were created, the sounds were reviewed through Apple's legal department and they objected that one of the new system sound alerts as having a name that was "too musical", as per the recent settlement. The creator of the new sound alerts for System 7 and the Macintosh Startup Sound, Jim Reekes, had grown frustrated with the legal scrutiny and first quipped it should be named "Let It Beep", a pun on The Beatles' "Let It Be". When someone remarked that that wouldn't pass legal's approval, he remarked "so sue me." After a brief reflection, he resubmitted the sound's name as sosumi (a homophone of "so sue me"), telling the legal department that the name was Japanese and had nothing to do with music.

Sosumi also exists currently in an inside joke on Apple Inc.'s website as the name of a CSS typographical style used for legal notices. An example of this found on Apple's homepage is below:

<p class="sosumi">Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.</p>

References

Judgment in Apple Corps Limited vs Apple Computer, Inc. 2004 EWHC 768 (Ch) in Case No: HC-2003-C02428, Royal Courts of Justice
Early Apple sound designer Jim Reekes corrects Sosumi myth (Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing, 24 March 2005)
CNN article of Apple Computer winning suit against Apple Corps

See also

References