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Newspapers Back Apple Bloggers
puke76 writes "Remember the bloggers being sued by Apple? Well now they've attracted the attention and support of some major newspapers. There's a story over at BBC. The newspapers are arguing that journalism sources should be protected. Can we blog without legal repercussions?" From the article: "Recent corporate scandals involving WorldCom, Enron and the tobacco industry all undoubtedly involved the reporting of information that the companies involved would have preferred to remain unknown to the public..."
I am an ardent backer of free journalism, but I see this case pushing a very fine line. Where does "journalism" stop and "somebody just writing something down" start?
Suppose someone writes a trade secret in an anonymous Slashdot story submission? In an anonymous Slashdot comment? In a LiveJournal entry? In a Slashdot journal entry?
Should these all be protected under the guise of journalism?
The Internet blurs the line between professional journalism and amateur writing, which is one of the great things about the new levels of communication that is available to anyone able to get online.
This case can hold the precedence to start the "slippery slope" of protecting anything written online. While this might sound like a wonderful idea to the "Information wants to be free" crowd, I see it as being very dangerous.
This case is a bad test of the "bloggers as journalists" question anyway. Had a paper newspaper done the exact same thing, the law would not protect the paper either. ThinkSecret knowingly asked someone to disclose a trade secret, and then knowingly published this "secret" for no reason other than to publish it (and maybe reap some ad revenue).
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
...become a "newspaper"?
I actually heard a report on BBC Radio today about Apple's image, which touched upon the whole rumour site issue - they had an interview with the EFF lawyer who defended the sites. The basic point was Apple had slightly tarnished it's "little kid taking on the world" image.
Agreed. The person who leaked Apple's secrets broke the law and deserves no protection from it, although I wish Apple would go easy on them, but make it clear that the next person will be made an example of. If I posted the windows source code in a JE would I be deserving of protection from microsoft? The dood signed a legal contract saying he wouldn't talk about it, and talked about it.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Except that the ThinkSecret et al cases have nothing to do with the whistle blowing that went on with Enron, WorldCom, and the tobacco industry. If the blogger sites had found out information that Apple was cooking the books and defrauding their stockholders and raiding their employees 401K plans and other retirement funds, or was knowingly coating their products in a toxic chemical that will eventually lead to a debilitating or fatal disease, then there would be similarities.
Releasing info on upcoming products that, while the public would be interested in for other reasons but do not affect the greater good of the public, is not whistle blowing. In the "public's interest" and for the Public Good are two entirely different things.
Basically, these news organizations and the AP are trying to ensure they cover their asses in the future, hoping that they can still protect whistle blowers, but it sounds to me like they have completely forgotten what the term whistle blower means. Either that, or a lot of the reporters had planned on doing similar things, and don't want to face the repercussions of doing so. Either way, they are in the wrong on this issue, not Apple.
And quite another to be charging advertisers.
Let's face it, these are not Uncle Joe blogging about a rumor, these are folks making a buck off someone breaking a confidential agreement. Even bona fide journalists go to jail when they break the law or encourage someone to break the law to get a story.
I don't like NDA's, but the reality is they are legal and binding agreements. And breaking an NDA to get a 10-20 jump on an announcement is, in my view, rather stupid.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
are they seriously saying that the leaking of product information (against a contract) is the same thing as being a whistle blower against illegal actions by companies like worldcom. this is completely backwards. The bloggers are losing because they are incouraging people to break the law, for no public good or safety reason.
If it was okay to break these agreements for no good reason i wonder if it would be okay if say a rep. from lockeed martin could leak info about a weapons program, its against his contract, but what the hell, those contracts dont matter... this is journalism! Sorry journalism does have a limit. Im all for whistle blowers, but thats why they have laws to protect them, these guys are NOT whistle blowers (check the definition if you dont believe me).
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
What about speech that isn't protected now?
There has to be some arbiter.
Yes, but NOT the company in question!
And in your model, anyone could break their contractual agreements freely without fear of any discipline or reprisal simply by leaking to any web site.
They already do, doh! You could take some secrets of your company, go to a cybercafe, enter an anonimizing proxy and upload the data to your favorite website. All of this without getting caught.
NO - It is the COMPANY's responsibility to ensure the data isn't leaked in the first place.
And the Apple blogger in question didn't expose anything that would actually *harm* the company (like publishing some blueprints or source code). He just published A COUPLE OF ROUMORS, come on.
This whole thing is happening at the boundary of two huge grey areas: Journalistic Freedom and Trade Secrets.
In the past, companies would be happy to have free publicity, especially the positive kind. Viral marketing is just an upgrade to classic 'word of mouth' and is both free and effective. So, in this case, more benefit was probably done than harm.
If this escalates, soon anyone who writes non-official information about a product that discloses some features or product details may be sued for unofficially offering trade secrets to the public.
But I guess the patriarchy of corporations knows what is best for us after all.
Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
You are confusing rights with privilages and expectations people enjoy.
Nixon didn't have a right to privacy when he ventured into the open market of the presidency and violates some laws to get there. He had an expectation of privacy but no right.
You don't have a right to travel in any lane of trafic. What you have is a privilage to do so if it is availible. Someone else driving there doesn't inpead any rights. It hampers your expectation of being able to do so.
Jim Dunne, I'm not sure who he is but you might be corect here. Companies do have a right to (a limited) pricay and the ability to keep trade secretes private if they choose to do so.
Photographers. This is a touchy situations here. People holding public office as well as being "famous" tend to have a less right or expectation of privacy then others. This has been established in court so it is set in case law. I think what is confusing here is the fact that outside a law banning the marrying of a house, Charles would have an right to privacy were "prince" charles would just have an expectation of privacy.
Some time we assume that somethign we are acustom to is a right and that right is infered to others. You have the right to equal opertunity houseing but a registered sex offender has a limited right and has to be so far away from places minor might be. Convicted DUI offenders don't have the same rights we might have and famous people don't have as much protection form slander or liable as wee do. (they do however, general have more of a means to combat it)
Great, but under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act there is absolutely no evidence that this is a trade secret!
Look, you go to work at a company, and they have you sign an NDA saying you won't disclose anything you learn at the company to anyone. You start work, and one day after work you are telling a friend that you love the job, but the two things you hate are that your boss is an idiot and the coffee sucks. He thinks it is funny, so puts it in his blog, and the next thing you know the company wants to know who leaked that they hat there boss, and that the coffee sucks. Now, clearly this has in no way aided the public good, so is it your position that this should be a trade secret, and the blogger should be compelled to provide your name to your employer? I mean, it is a clear-cut case of violating you NDA, and letting internal information get out of the company, so shouldn't you be punished for talking with your friend?
The simple fact is that not everything that happens at a company is covered by trade secret protection. In fact, in most states it is quite difficult to prove that something is a trade secret, and it requires that you take exraordinary measures to protect it. You can't just say "oh, we didn't want that getting out yet, so it is a trade secret." In fact, even the judge in this case expressed doubts as to whether or not this would stand the test to be deemed a trade secret, yet went ahead and granted their request simply because it might be found to be a trade secret at a later date.
If that is the case, then why is there not a single mention of any NDA in any of the findings? No, Apple could not have obtained a sopbnea to get the information they wanted by just claiming an NDA had been broken. Had they claimed that this was just an issue of an NDA being broken, then the burden of proof would have been on them, and they would have had to have found out who broke it themselves.
Apple specifically invoked the trade secrets law, because it gave them a heavier hand to play with. They are trying to claim that this is information that falls into a rarified clas of intellectual property, which gives them special protections beyond that offered by simply having someone sign an NDA.