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Judge Finds For Apple in ThinkSecret Case
An anonymous reader writes: "In a case with implications for the freedom to blog, a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company's upcoming products. The San Jose news piece has the most detail on the ruling while Mac Daily News has some background on the case, and Gizmodo vociferously expresses an opinion on the lawsuit. We've covered the case in the past as well.
But isn't there a law that says journalists can protect there sources?
Talk about your potential PR disaster. Sue your most rabid fans, always a good plan.
The article didn't state it explicitly, but I was wondering if maybe they overheard the information.
I remember when I worked at Intel in Portland, there was a bar and grill called the Cornelius Pass Roadhouse that everyone visited after work('Today's been a killer, I need CPR'). Journalists from Wired would hang out in adjacent tables and take notes as the chip designers gave away the entire roadmap without knowing a single name.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
The NDA is a "confidentially " contract with whomever the company is disclosing the info to. It is not with the blog or website that that person leaks the info too. The leaker has violated the NDA, if there was one (or possibly his terms of employment) and is liable for doing so. This is completely seperate from the freedom of the press issues raised here, and more importantly the issue of online publications being somehow different that traditional media and thus not deserving of the same rights and protections. Apple is completely within its rights to go after the leakers, but should not be allowed to treat the blogs any different that say the New York Times.
sorry but judges enjoy throwing a journalist in jail in an attempt to force them to revela their sources.
this is nothing new.
judges get all pissy when someone tells them no.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you want to avoid being sued, act reasonably to avoid harming others. You don't have to know every state's laws as long as you wonder whether it's unreasonable to interfere with the employment contracts of others by requesting that they break their confidentiality agreements -- which it is. Nick knew he was risking a suit when he solicited info from Apple employees.
So in the US you can force journalists to cough up the names of people who leaked Apple product specs, but you can't force them to cough up the name of the Bush admin shill who outed a CIA agent. Fucking fantastic.
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Many social scientists have gone to jail to protect their sources. Interesting to me that the code of ethics that many of us (social scientists) subscribe to require us to protect our sources from harm. Of course hopefully we would have forseen the danger to our sources and not published it in the first place...
But, the implications for all sorts of research are a little freaky.
- Sighuh?
Notice how the title just said "Apple". If it had been Microsoft doing the suing, I'm willing to bet the title would've been: "Your rights online: Microsoft against freedom of speech".
I wouldn't compare their actions to Microsoft. I would go so far to compare their actions to the RIAA. And I own a G5, an iBook, and a iPod. I love their products, but I'm quickly losing respect for the company.
What if you - being a "real" journalist or a blogger - just take a wild guess at what apple's (or any other company's) next products/steps/strategies might be, but put it in a form as if you had an informant and knew for sure?
Could you be sued for being right...? After all some product launches where easy to predict - even without any leaked information (the iMac mini being a perfect example here).
Plenty of actual Mac developers would.
Wozniak does.
Woz is even contributing to the poor boy's legal fund. He's not forgotten the garage (even if Jobs has).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you begin defining what is and what is not a journalist, drawing lines and assigning labels, then the government will control journalism and there will be no freedom of the press: the Brazilian model, born of a military government (supported strongly by the U.S., btw.)
Journalists and what defines journalism should be left untouched by government so that corruption and crime will continue to be exposed: the American model.
Journalists need to be protected. Where there are corrupt governments, with limits on press freedom, there are dead journalists.
Granted that some limits should be imposed in extreme cases, such as Fox "News" and other hoary conservative organs of fiction.
I'm not an Apple fan by any measure, but I wouldn't feel ashamed at all. Here's my take on it:
Apple has internal secrets about what they're going to do as a company. One of their own, violating a documented promise (signed contract), is leaking these secrets, permitting them to fall into the hands of the competition. They are leaking these secrets for personal gain and/or to damage Apple.
Apple wants to identify and stop this person. However, those who know who this person is, and those who willingly distributed these secrets, are not talking under the guise of "journalistic freedom".
The person publishing the information is simply protecting their personal business model. These "rumor" sites make a lot of money though advertising - and stopping the free flow of trade secrets - their business - will hurt their substantial income.
This isn't about journalistic freedom, and this isn't about keeping America free. It's about the buying and selling of trade secrets in order to make money.
These sites are all about making money, and their most profitable products are Apple's trade secrets.
The reporter isn't being held in contempt, which is what that law is talking about. The reporter isn't facing jail time.
This was a civil matter seeking to subpoena someone who broke a civil contract.
Now that Apple has this ruling, if they don't give up the source, they are violating the order of a judge.
Shady loophole? Possibly. Contempt? Nope.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Except they aren't just rumors. They were far to accurate for rumors, and the site in question solicits information from Apple employees.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Nowhere in the constitution does it establish any such association that officiates over who is allowed to become a member of the press. If I publish a newspaper, or an informational flyer of the same nature, I should be granted the same freedoms as any other. To do otherwise would be to claim that any citizens right to free speech can be denied because he or she was not a member of the Citizens for Free Speech Association, the likes of which may even be able to selectively deny membership. I would love to see this go to the Supreme Court. They usually have more sense over these sorts of issues.
Apple complains about lost sales of their other machines to people who heard about the mini and waited till it came out.
What about people who heard about the mini and waited for it instead of buying a sub-$300 X86 PC?
Joe Computerbuyer says "Those macintoshes are so expensive, and I need a computer, guess I'm stuck with a clunky pentium 1 machine from GoodWill. Wait what's this on Think Secret - a cool new mac that *I* can afford? cool I'm wait'n for that!"
Shouldn't Apple be saying "Thanks ThinkSecret more sales for our mini" ?
Moving off topic even further; I disagree with these limitations. I understand I'm very much so in the minority, and, I recognize that I'm being an idealist, but it really bothers me.
/salute
I suppose I wouldn't even really care but for the fact that this "Freedom of Speech" is touted so highly, first in our schools, and then in our society. The truth is, we don't have it. If they didn't ACT like we had it, I wouldn't mind nearly as much. This applies to everything, I suppose, as we are, at least in name, the "land of the free". Funny how many restrictions we have, being the land of the free. Realistically, I know they're necessary, but, by definition, if we're restricted, we're not free. If people didn't act like we were, I wouldn't care, but the fact that people recite this blatantly false liturgy as if it were the truth really, really bothers me.
But I digress, and don't really add anything to this conversation other than my dismay. Feel free to mod me off topic.
unfortunately Apple is unable to deal with this internally. I doubt that the person who leaked this information is going to stand up and proclaim that they did it.
And it would be very hard for Apple to control access to data pertaining to products that are being developed if the person leaking the information is part of the development team.
I do whole-heartedly agree that if thinksecret were publishing nothing but rumors that it should be protected from revealing sources, but the information on the sight was far too complete to have come from speculation alone. If a large magazine where to publish this information, which could have a negative effect on Apple's survival, they would be held liable too. We shouldn't try to make this a David vs Goliath issue.
And as far as what defines a journalist I would hope that it would be anyone who publishes information for public consumption, but that's just what I'd hope.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
A very good post.
I'd like to add one more thing: Ethics.
Journalists may have freedom to report news, but that does not absolve them from having to have ethics. It's where the part of journalism that has more gray than black and white areas. It's not something you simply guess, but must be learned. And to be a member of professional journalist organization, one should be able to demonstrate some ethics. Even if you are not a member, you should demonstate ethics if you want to be considered a journalist. Spreading rumors is not journalism (and ThinkSecret is a rumor site despite its higher rate of accuracy than the average sites).
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean they have to tell you where they got their information. Sure, the guy who told you may have violated a contract, but that is not a criminal matter, it is a civil matter.
Obstruction of justice is interference with the courts or a law enforcement officer:
obstruction of justice
n. an attempt to interfere with the administration of the courts, the judicial system or law enforcement officers, including threatening witnesses, improper conversations with jurors, hiding evidence or interfering with an arrest. Such activity is a crime. link
I understand where Apple is coming from (they have a right to try to find out), but this doesn't tie in with obstruction of justice at all, as far as I can see. There comes a point when private companies that are pursuing civil matters are trying to get the criminal justice system to do their work for them (like having an FBI task force dedicated to online music piracy). This is not nearly that bad, but it is moving in that direction. Apple has resources other than simply suing someone for information. This just seems wrong, to me at least.
Would you prefer a "journalism" license thats issued by the federal government? I'm sure the White House would.
Who says the White House would get a say in the matter? There are lots of ways of certifying journalists that don't involve the government at all.
And it's not as if our current system is any great shakes, either -- Just look at how much news coverage Michael Jackson is getting over Jeff Gannon, for Pete's sake. Or the recently-outed group of "independent" commentators who were actually paid shills of the Administration. Hell, the fact that Michael Moore produced more Iraq war revelations in Fahrenheit 9/11 than ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox combined tells you how totally eff'ed up American journalism is already.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Isn't this more of a CONTRACT being broken, not a law ? Someone broke ther NDA CONTRACT. Not quite the same as breaking "the law".
Unless, of course, the "law" in question is the Uniform Trade Secrets Act of California, which allows a corporation to recover damages for misappropriation of technichal information by its employees. Either an Apple employee was this blogger's source, and violated the USTA, or the blogger's source wasn't an apple employee, thus needing to violate innumerable other laws in order to acquire the information in question.
It applies to TORTS as well as crimes. Someone else has already elaborated on this.
Apple is not the government or a public entity, therefore no one has the right to know about their trade secrets. They have a the right to keep competitors from using and perhaps causing damage to Apple's product line. There is no legitimate reason a person has the right to know PRIVATE information whether is it Apple's or my medical records. It is not in the interest of the public. It is theft plain and simple. And Think Secret "fenced" the information.
And why not? Perhaps the latest R&D isn't as urgent as whether or not people are dying from contaminated water. But you are simply wrong here.
It is not necessary for the Public to be aware of Apple's R&D Efforts, until Apple is ready to release that information. Knowing Apple's R&D Plans are not necessary to protect the public from illegal activity.
Huh? First, illegal activity is subjective. There's a lot of activities that are illegal and probably shouldn't be (eg, drug use, sodomy, etc) and there's legal activities that probably should be but isn't (eg, rent-seeking on the public dollar, politician lying about a conflict of interest).
Second, the public was indeed being protected. By releasing early Apple's near term marketing plans, thousands of Apple customers during the month of January were assisting in making better buying decisions. That's useful information.
This case seems to be coming down to what's a journalist and who's not, and journalists have 1st amendment rights and others don't.
May I say right now "WTF?"
2600 Magazine claims often that they are protected by the constitution because they print on PAPER. If they were a website or an electronically distrubuted newsletter (like the famous PHRACK case), they would have been shut down long ago by the government or by corporations that don't want them publishing how to break through security.
So the question you need to start asking yourself is, are you willing to take that first step towards all censorship to protect Apple's trade secrets?
Because once you do, security flaws in windows could be deemed trade secrets.
Is it okay for the Paparattzi (sorry for the spelling) to go through the trash of celebrities to find some juicy tidbit of information to publish in some rag like the Inquirer? I mean, that's for money too, so let's not knock Think Secret for trying to make a buck -- they are just like every other publication or "news organization" in that they want to get the salacious info first, because that's how they make money.
What's the difference between revealing that Apple's going to make a Mac Mini or that Michael Jackson has relations with little boys?
What's the difference between revealing that Apple's going to come out with a iPod flavor that you can taste, and revealing that Dick Cheney has stolen 12 Billion Dollars of your money by funnelling it through Halliburton?
Isn't all of this "news"? And therefore, isn't any organzation, no matter how fly-by-night, that REPORTS THE NEWS, a "news organzation"?
And who's going to deceide what is and isn't news?
Because if you're going to read about it, if you have a hunger to know, if you're going to visit the sites that tell you about Apple's upcoming products, Windows flaws, Michael Jackson's sexual orientation, Martha Stewart's jailtime, Dick Cheney's thefts, or how to break into Home Depot's mainframe, then publications, websites, booklets, and other printed and digital material will be created to meet that need.
If you don't like it, then stop reading.
But don't legislate the rest of us into not reading because that, my friend, is censorship, and that's a road you don't want to travel.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
He is absolutely right.
I am a paying Apple Developer (associate class) and the non-disclosure agreement is pretty tight. I can't reveal even if I possess some of Apple's Technology, much less what it does, how good it is, etc.
So when asked I tell people I know nothing about upcoming Tiger and whether is runs real spiffy.
I know zip about how I wish the dashboard WASN'T something that made the display transparent.
I pretty much am disclosing nothing about anything.
I take contracts serious because I once was sued (it never got to court and my lawyer pretty much shut down the alleged "suers" before they managed to get anything out the door).
My point is that these are not to be entered into lightly. Read them. If you don't like the terms, attempt to modify them or don't sign it.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV