Slashdot Mirror
Apple Sues Think Secret
Isaac Newton writes "Reuters is reporting that Apple Computer has sued website Think Secret for allegedly divulging trade secrets relating to its upcoming sub-$500 Mac desktop and office suite. The lawsuit is apparently giving legitimacy to the rumors."
Apple couldn't find the internal leak, so they're shooting the messenger.
Yeah they have. Those are the unnamed individuals named in the suit
The rumours might be accurate in part, but perhaps terribly inaccurate in other ways - and could significantly undermine the true products if they're seen as inferior to the imaginary ones. If that's the case, I can see why people at Apple would be upset...
IANAL but I always thought that the purpose of Trade Secret law is to protect a company against people informing competitors of TRUE information (i.e. Trade Secrets) not FALSE information. The legal defence against false information is Libel or Slander...
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
MacSlash covered this before, check the comments there where the s/n ratio is lower.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
It's not quite a sub $500 mac. It's headless for a start, so users are going to need to spend $100 for a half decent CRT, probably more. I don't know what the target market is, as Apple has always sold headless macs to the professional arena (PowerMacs are headless as a rule) but lower priced macs have been aimed at the home user. I hope for Apple's sake that they work out they need to bundle in a cheap Apple branded 17" CRT for $100 or so (Dell style).
Except that Apple has a somewhat legitimate gripe about people breaching their NDAs, but any sane judge will tell that iTunes user to go buy a different portable player, use another online music store, and shut the fuck up. The guy has NO CASE. Apple never made a secret of the fact that music downloaded from the iTMS won't work on any other portable player except the iPod. For that matter, neither do the other online music stores.
That guy is either a complete moron, or he's just looking for a quick buck and thinks Apple will pay him off to make him go away-- which I highly doubt they will.
~Philly
Interestingly/amusingly/somethingly, ThinkSecret has posted more "rumours" since the lawsuit was announced:
$149 1GB iPod is coming
You can still download YzDock from some places, http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2790 it was neat but not rock solid as you'd expect for a version 0.8. Why would the mighty Apple be offended by such a thing? A) A threat to their IP B) It showed PC Users a cool Mac feature C) Some laywer had a few minutes to kill
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
Occasionally I get insider knowledge about whats going on inside the company as well as companies that make synths and other goodies. Sometimes I'll post a rumor about it that is so vague that no one will ever guess (but be completely obvious when its released), but never any details. Sadly, the details are never from the guys that work there (I'm very good friends with a few upper management types as well as the lowly cubicle jockies) -- its always from contractors or beta testers looking to make their mark.
As I work for a company that is often the target of your rumour-mongering, I gotta say, you don't really do a good job of differentiating yourself from "contractors and beta testers looking to make their mark", though. The difference between 'fucktards who run Thinksecret' and 'gossip junkies on sonikmatter'? Not much, really. Thinksecret just has more readers.
I'd put you in the same camp, frankly; just because you have a 'mob' behind you in the sonikmatter forums, doesn't excuse rampant unravelling of product development and marketing campaigns by a self-righteous 'few' who think they have a God-given right to promote the open propagation of trade secrets far and wide.
Its like, I just discovered that you've been working on a new back-end for sonikmatter, and I know one or two of your passwords. Because I'm self-righteous, its my duty to propagate these details about your back-end far and wide...
Personally, the slimey nerds always trying to 'get the scoop before everyone else' has often tainted the market (synths) I work in.. those guys really make it un-fun to have something cool to tell the world about.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Fuck off AC --
:-)
I'd feel the same if it were Microsoft and I wish them all the ill feelings in the world.
That doesn't mean that folks should be allowed to kill business this way. Hell, maybe Microsoft would make better products if they were allowed some room to get to market without everyone breathing down their necks and could market towards having the best product -- not worrying about what competitor is going to come out with the same product and then claim that Big Bad M$ Stole My Idea (that I dead on a rumor mill).
But I repeat myself -- Fuck off AC
This kind of thing has happened before, and the site publishing the trade secrets was not liable, because they did not steal the secrets themselves.
In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a nice piece on the lawsuit.
however... thinksquiqqle didn't steal that information and neither was thinksquiqqle under nda that would have forbidden them from giving that information on.
the responsibility is on the person who leaked the data, HE is the one who breached the contract he had. now, think* might be sued to reveal their sources, they could of course claim that it was an anonymous email from what seems like a webkiosk, or a post to their mailing list, or forums, or wherever - in which case they're not more responsible for the information than slashdot would be if i put some trade secrets here in this post.
once the info is out it no longer is a secret, and generally anyone can report and talk about it - there's no law about discussing information that is already out in public(well, patriot or whatever might prevent even that stateside).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.