Apple drops blog ’secrets’ case
p2p news / p2pnet: “Apple has ended its legal fight to make bloggers reveal who leaked secret information about its new products,” says a BBC story, giving the impression that Apple had a choice.
Actually, Steve Jobs and his legal minions went after Apple Insider and Power Page with a literal vengeance, halting their bid to force the two sites to reveal details about confidential sources only when they couldn’t do anything else.
AI and PP both ran stories on Apple’s then top-secret Asteroid FireWire break-out box. But Jobs, who once used teen-aged RIAA victims in a deeply cynical iTunes / iPod commercial, likes things to be done his way or No Way and when the stories appeared, he tried to have the sites’ owner sued into disclosing their sources on the grounds that his trade secrets had been breached.
p2pnet, with Sharman Networks and Nikki Hemming trying to make it do the same, knows exactly how that feels.
Apple Insider and Power Page did what any self-respecting on- or offline publication with a special interest in a given field would do: they published stories they believed were accurate and truthful, even though the data hadn’t come from Apple.
So what? It wasn’t like the revelations impacted US national security or anything like that. It was a purely commercial event centering on purely commercial interests with zero social values. Nothing more.
Be that as it may, Apple won the first round of the legal battle but the order to unmask the sources was over-turned on appeal, as the BBC story points out, and, “Now Apple has decided not to contest the appeal court ruling which gave net journalists the same protections as traditional media counterparts.”
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) argued that if Apple was successful the ability of all journalists to use information from confidential sources would be compromised, it said, going on:
“While the appeal court did not agree with the EFF on this point it said that online journalists and bloggers deserved the same protections as colleagues who publish in newspapers. Now the deadline for Apple to contest this appeal ruling has passed and legal papers filed by the computer maker suggest it will not pursue the matter any further.
“A separate trade secrets lawsuit that Apple filed against another site – Think Secret – has yet to be resolved.”
Digg this.
Also See:
BBC – Apple gives up on hunt for moles, July 14, 2006
Asteroid FireWire – New Apple Asteroid trouble, September 13, 2005
iTunes / iPod commercial – Pepsi-iTunes Super Bowl ad blasted, January 30, 2004
how that feels – Sharman drops p2pnet libel case, July 12, 2006
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July 14th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
American companies are so plagued and controlled by their legal departments and hired gun lawyers or stupid worries that they waste their energies on the wrong things.
All companies should take notice. They should realize that some lawyers give legal advise or take cases only because that is profitable for the lawyer. Throw these type of lawyers out the window, to survive.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
July 14th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
The world is run by bottom feeders – lawyers.