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Apple Subpoenas, Sues Over Leaks
CNET reports that Apple has been granted the right to subpoena O'Grady's PowerPage, AppleInsider, and Think Secret over leaks of information concerning an unreleased product code named "Asteroid" and "Q97," which has been described as a FireWire audio interface for use with GarageBand. The subpoenas are related to a lawsuit against an unnamed individual who leaked the information.
I'd guess it means that people are violating their NDAs. There is nothing rotten with a company protecting thier confifendtail information.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I love you people and your little conspiracy theories. It's cute. There's already a few others in this thread saying they're trying to divert attention, spin this, hype that. Ha.
It's quite simple, actually. Some guy posted the full specs and drawings of an unannounced product. This potentially allowed competitors to either (a) rush a similar product to market first or (b) launch a marketing campaign against Apple's yet unreleased product. In either case, it'll debut a flop, through no fault of the product itself or Apple's marketing.
Rumors are one thing. There's tons of Mac rumor sites and they get left alone by Apple. Because they're mostly about conjecture and vague bits of possible information. This guy posted something very specific, very exact, and very accurate. Apple has every legal and moral right to take him to the cleaners for violating his NDA and harming their ability to compete on a fair playing field.
This has nothing to do with PR or spin. Really, the PR is only going to be negative coming out of this (the ignorant masses will say "look at the big mean corporation beating up on the little guy!"). They are doing this to protect themselves in the future by punishing the ones who leak specific NDA information and discouraging others from doing the same.
Go get 'em!
</faggy Apple fanboy>
They're suing someone who violated the terms of the NDA. End of story.
how relevant WE think the information is, or how worth hiding/saving/embargoing is irrelevant. There are tons of reasons that a company wants to keep info secret until they're ready for it to be released. They might (legitimately) fear that a competitor could use the info to get the jump on them. Considering how 'cool' people think Apple's stuff is this is likely. Or they may want to maximize the marketing impact of the product update/launch. This is not so insignificant really. As someone who works in marketing, I can say that an "oooh, what's next" buzz can be very helpful, and even valuable bonus when introducing product. To have some employee leak it for nothing more than first posters braggin rights is annoying and they wouldn't have a hard time making the claim that it cost them real money. And if the guy signed an NDA (VERY likely if he's working in product development) then he's screwed. I think the real story here is that they were allowed to subpeona the records of the sites he posted to. One reason why you'll never see me posting stuff that I find out at work (v. big tech/computer firm here).
This is hardly a stunt lawsuit. The person in question undoubtedly signed an NDA and now he has broken it. Ya there are too many lawsuits going on but you might want to pick which one you whine about next time. On top of that Apple is about as innovative as a Desktop computer company gets, exactly what are you whining about there?
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."