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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.
In trying to identify the identity of worker bee (ex-contractor, Juan Gutierrez), Apple basically had to confirm that there was some truth to the rumors that he was posting--namely the details of a revision to the iBook laptop. Apple eventually did release a laptop whose details matched worker bee's description. In 2001, Apple settled with Gutierrez after he promised to turn over any remaining Apple confidential information and not divulge any further details.
Honestly this seems to be little more than drumming up even more buzz over up-in-coming products. Yeah, they probably were going to keep it a secret for a while longer but now that it's out why not milk it a bit and get the word out?
I have no interest in most of what Apple does or makes. I certainly wouldn't be perusing the three sites mentioned in the lawsuit but what I do peruse are news sites and other non-Apple sites (news.google.com, Slashdot, etc). Would I have heard about this through Slashdot? Perhaps. Would I have heard about the lawsuit through news.google.com AND Slashdot? Yup, in fact, I did.
So, I'm a PC/Windows user. Never surf the Apple rumor sites. I hear about this lawsuit that stems from the leaking of information about a piece of hardware that I can hook my computer up to my instruments and record shit. Sounds cool...
Worth filing some papers and getting someone to promise they will never leak information again? Yeah, I think so.
There really isn't any information contained on those sites that isn't contained in the articles about the suit.
Is Apple going to sue slashdot now for telling us what the lawsuits were about?
Of course all Apple has achieved is validating the rumor.
I am the last person to defend Apple but this is such a non-story. They are not suing these sites. They obviously caught somebody who signed an NDA leaking information and are suing them. These sites are receiving subpoenas because they may be able to verify the identity of said person.
Are you sure it wasn't a secret graphing calculator app???
"Your first time being root is much the same as loosing your virginity only with less humilation."
Not if you manage to combine the right balance of arrogance and incompetence it's not.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
GarageBand is the audio editing/music creation application now included as part of the iLife suite of apps (along with iTunes, iDVD, etc.)
More info at http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/
It's not too hard to track down, if you try.
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.
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).
That's all well and good, but you still haven't answered the OP's question: what is GrangeBand?
... but I am really sick of hearing about lawsuits. Period. I understand the need to protect brand equity, and can even see the justification for protecting your "IP," but honestly. When will these companies stop with the lawsuits!
New Year's resolution: not buying anything from anybody filing "stunt" (Apple) or "business model" (SCO) lawsuits. I would much rather these execs just took each other out behind the woodshed, beat the crap out of each other, shook hands, drank a beer, and got on with some, oh, I don't know, INNOVATION!
Overly litigious people/companies make me sick.
In addition, while this lawyer argues his case, the Jury sits around restless. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even the court recorder is straining to keep awake as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working with Apple lawyers, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen an Apple lawyer that has made a more reasonable case than its opposition counterpart, despite the Apple lawyer's superior training. My Real Estate Attorney with an Associate's Degree from New England Tech works better than this $3,000 per hour machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Apple has superior lawyers.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to have Apple sue them over other faster, cheaper, more stable individuals.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
They've also sued three ADC members who were distributing developer builds of Mac OS X Tiger via BitTorrent.
Details here and here.
Nothing spectacular here, since besides the obvious copyright infringement, the developer builds are released under NDA.
I know it' s only 3 weeks before MWSF but let's all act like adults here: if I want fanboi I'll go to PowerPage.
I got all excited at the prospect of PowerPage finally getting shuttered. Don't let me down like that.
- learn to swim.
garage band is a simple to use audio application that is part if the iLife suite (iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, garage band). http://www.apple.com/ilife/
one of the rumor sites said the code name Asteroid was a joke on the term "breakout box".
breakout and asteroid being old school video games.
breakout box being a device that has the multiple A/V ports and connects to the computer with one cable.
they seemed to imply Asteroid and Q97 were internal codenames for the device, not knowing what the shipping name would be. it was implied the device could ship as soon as January's MacWorld expo, or in the next few months. i guess the assumption is that it might ship with the rumored iLife2. OS X 10.4 is due to ship in the next few months too.... and nobody seemed to know if iLife2 would ship with 10.4 or before.
Why is it that you people insist on trying to push the notion that Apple only pushes aesthetics... as if theres nothing else like ease of use, faster, smaller, more efficient, quieter etc... The parent post is a thinly veiled troll which trys to imply that Apple is only about flash.... Sigh...
Yeah but they do it to generate buzz and publicity.. and i suspect lawyers end up being cheaper than advertising.
You can buy a digidesign Mbox factory package for $550. It comes with ProTools LE (the only real limit - practically speaking - is record/playback of 32 simultaneous tracks) and a crapload of really good plug-ins. And the Focus Rite mic pres are pretty nice.
I know that sounds like a commercial, but I actually own one. And I love it. My question is can Apple really compete with that? I mean, ProTools is the industry standard for digital audio recording and editing for a reason.
Then again, I suppose any "musician" who buys Garage Band isn't exactly looking to take their tracks to a real engineer or shop their creation around to record companies, and more than "graphic artists" who use MS Paint would take their creations to a printing press.
Despite conventional wisdom, I've discovered you can blame a guy for trying. It's called "attempted murder".
The mark of true journalists is they will not give in. Rather than revealing sources like this a good reporter will go to jail and have a comtempt of court record for the rest of his life!
This has been fought out in courts many times. I'm not sure where the law stands now (though some cases have come down in favor of the reporter in the past).
Ever notice that the media can somehow interview big names like Bin Laden (not him in particular, but others like him) that the government wants yet cannot find? Its because a reporter understands the sources are everything and if you turn on them you are sunk.
A firewire device for musicians. What a great idea. That's Apple for you, always on the forefront of new technology.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Sorry MS fanboys, you can't brand Apple evil yet in retaliation for tarnishing the good name of M$, they are doing something they should and have every right to do.
Except they're not suing their own fans. They're suing someone who is likely from inside the company for leaking information. After all, how could any Average Joe find out such detailed information? It's obvious that the person who leaked the device was someone inside Apple, and anyone with that kind of access would have signed an NDA. It's simple breach of contract. They're merely serving subpoenas to rumor sites in order to get information on who the person might be. They're not suing any sites, just compelling them to release information about who the person might be. An employee becomes a real liability to the company when they start leaking pre-released device specifications to Internet sites, and who knows that he/she won't do it again with a bigger product?
Want Slashdot headlines on your site? Try SlashHead
an unnamed individual
Makes me think about that line in Loaded Weapon 1 when they were trying to get info from Lovitz:
"Gimme a name!"
"Weren't your parents suppose to do that?"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
It's funny, Apple did everything right in this case. They filed a john doe lawsuit, then subpoenaed the web sites for information of their informant. If you had someone sign an NDA then showed them your top-secret project, would you do any less? I can see news sites refusing to answer the subpoenas as a matter of journalistic integrity in the case of a whistle blower, but this is not a case of wrongdoing, just a simple contract dispute. Despite doing everything above board here, half the posts are still criticizing Apple for trying to enforce their contracts. They did not threaten the web sites, one of which MS did just last week. They did not file any lawsuits against the web sites. What more could you ask?
From my point of view I hope they find out who did it. Apple pays our company alot of money for our work, and part of that higher price is the reasonable assumption that we will not "leak" their products. And in the grand scheme of things the rest of the world knowing about whatver the next Apple Thing-a-ma-bob (TM) is or keeping my job there is no contest.
If you are one in a million, then there are six thousand people who are just like you.
So anybody who doesn't operate in the way you think they should is closed minded? I wonder who has the closed mind here...
Subpoenas of source information at all levels of the journalistic hierarchy are causing trouble, lately. Even the New York Times has a couple of reporters in jail for not revealing their sources for stories on the Plame affair (remember, when one of the crooks in the White House illegally outed a deep-cover CIA agent in retribution for whistleblowing by her husband...).
It'll be interesting to see whether OPP, AI, and TS will stand their ground as firmly as the NYT did, or whether they roll over for the courts.