Company Town

* Music: The Jefferson Airplane has been unable to pull a white rabbit out of its hat in federal court in its effort to stop a software company from using a “flying toasters” design in a computer screen-saver program. The design is similar to one that appeared on the cover of a 1973 album by the group. The band, defunct musically since the early 1970s but still in existence as a business, did not obtain copyright protection for the album art for “Thirty Seconds Over Winterland” and therefore cannot sue for infringement, U.S. District Judge Fern Smith ruled in San Francisco. The group sued Berkeley Systems over the design of the popular screen-saver program. Berkeley Systems argued that it was unaware of the album cover when employees created the program. The Jefferson Airplane, one of the most popular rock groups of the late 1960s, is known for such songs as “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit” and “Volunteers.”