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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 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.
Apple is not suing those three sites, they are getting those sites to give the sources and unpublished details they have on the Asteroid rumor so they can sue the informant.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
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?
;-)
This is all part of Apple's Product Cycle. Surprised it's even news.
-Aaron
My name is Aaron Landry, and I approve this message.
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/
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).
... 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.
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.
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?