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Apple Fails Due Diligence in Trade Secret Case
Brett writes "Despite claims to the contrary, it now appears that Apple didn't do any serious investigation inside the
company before they sued AppleInsider and the PowerPage. This is quite a bit of a problem because Californian law and First Amendment precedent requires Apple check up on itself
before threatening journalists. From the article, "It appears that Apple has adopted a shoot-first, ask questions later approach to dealing with rumors sites. The company took no
depositions, required no oaths from its employees, and failed to subpoena anyone related to the company or the development of the device in question.""
But does it make them any different from an ethical point of view? We trash MS a lot for tossing its weight around with trademarks and filing for silly patents, but here we have a direct competitor who blindly fires off an illegitimate lawsuit against free speech journalism. In essense, wasn't Apple just trying to throw its weight around as well just like MS would do?
Not to sound like a fanboy, but this what is attractive about Linux. There's no organization, good or bad, that I'm directly supporting by using it as my computer OS. Trust me, I think Tiger might be the best user-centric OS by miles, but Apple as the market leader would frighten me just as much as MS as the market leader and as such, I don't buy their products.
The summary is very conclusive that Apple failed to do something required by law. Though from TFA:
"The First Amendment requires that compelled disclosure from journalists be a last resort," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Apple must first investigate its own house before seeking to disturb the freedom of the press."
Is the only source of this information in the summary this quote from an attorney working against Apple? If so, something stated by an opposing attoreny in the middle of a case shouldn't be taken as settled fact.
I'm a big tall mofo.
The article is not based on any decision made by a judge, it is based on what the opposing lawyers say. It is not even based on the _opinion_ of the opposing lawyers (which they might be very wise to keep to themselves), but on their interpretation that is most helpful to their clients.
It would be interesting to see what Apple's lawyers think about it. Maybe, just maybe, they have a slightly different point of few. Maybe they don't quite agree that the victim of a crime has to shoulder all the cost and hardship of the investigation.
Here is a comprehensive summary of the case at EFF's site. The coverage has obvious bias, but informative nonetheless.
95% of all sigs are made up.
They don't wanna lose their jobs,
"Of fucking course I didn't tell Apple Insider anything".
The mole may not even have known about a deliberate leak, similar to earlier this morning reading about Yahoo mail updates - this was 1st posted:
I saw the new interface when my cousin, who works for yahoo was visiting
liqbase
Way to go Apple, you ass hats.
When the story first broke that apple was sueing rumor sites I withheld judgement, you see I run a review site, I understand the dynamics of the tech industry and the vital role of a journalist, I also understand the letters NDA, and what they mean to a company, and what they mean to me when I sign one. I do feel that as a journalist I have protections given to me by the US constitution protecting me and everyone for that matter from persecution and prosocution as a result of what I write.
That being said it also needs to be aknowlaged that there have to be some checks and balances in the system that allow companies to protect information that if released early could damage the company. We need to recognize that we do have great freedoms and powers in the press but that we need to make sure we use those powers and freedoms responsibly, for example not outing a CIA agent that isn't doing anything more then her job, that isn't say stealing from the Repbulican National Convention headquarters, but is making our country a safer place. You know that thing we refer to as common sense.
We as a society also need to infer and compel in to people that when they make a resonable agreement with someone be it a company or other individual or institution, they need to be held to that agreement, meaning if employee's of apple did disclose information about an upcomming product and had signed an NDA, and the upcomming product was not part of a large and publicly damaging scandal they had no right to reveal that information to a third party, and thusly the third party doesn't have the right (even under freedom of the press / speech) to reveal that information to the public.
I think you are forgetting that Microsoft didn't have any GUI under development when Apple gave them Mac developer kits for them to write Office for the Mac.
Apple had given Xerox shares in exchange for just a demo of what they had achieved at PARC.
Microsoft did not give Apple or Xerox anything.
[)amien
Well, yes, that's what a lot of us, many of us Apple users, do deny. We have opened the cases, and looked at what's in them, and we just do not see it. We see the same drives, opticals, memory, psus, graphics cards as in our Dell boxes. We see main boards manufactured by, I think, Asus. We don't see any particularly wonderful layout of the components. We don't even see in general better cooled or quieter cases.
And if you think failure rates and quality problems are any different, read Ars Technica. They just are not.
It would be lovely if it were different, especially for us users, but the facts are alas not so.
Well, sometimes Apple is no better than some of the assholes that run/runed the company. For the sake of the people that live in the RDF: I'm not talking of Steve Jobs -many mistakes but good overall-.
Yes, some of this guys are control freaks, DRM-lovers, RIAA-bitches, that are no different than MS/SCO/SUN troops.
What IS different is the organizational culture of Apple and other companies. I believe it is better than Microsoft's, Sun's and, definitely, SCO's. That I like, and because of it Apple is capable of making great products not only because they want big profits but for the sake of doing things right.
Sometimes it seems that they are forced to do "Good Things", or that their intentions are not 'pure', like some interactions with the OS community.
But look at their DRM strategy compared to M$. They looked at things from the user's perspective and tried to change the views of the RIAA to match the 'reality' of us. I don't think this was only motivated by profit but because Apple 'thinks different' than M$.
As for the case at hand: I don't think Apple should be suing those websites. They should plug their leaks.
Disclosure: I'm stupid
We don't even want to know about the details. We forgive them anyway. But deep down inside we know that they are not really at fault or it was just an honest mistake. And I'm almost sure MS has something to do with this.
http://www.ilaw.com.au/linuxfaq.html/ explains it a bit.
It seems like Linus (or his lawyers rather) want to protect the Linux trademark. Hypthetically speaking, if I had a product titled Lunix Utilities, I wouldn't seem to fall under that trademark use. However, if my company or product name was MikeRoweSoft or Lindows, Microsoft could and would sue me.
*Shrug* It's a pretty hairy issue. I see where Linus or his lawyers are coming from, but I wonder why the demand in monetary payment in order to ensure their trademark isn't abused.
You're correct, there is very little difference in this so called 'Apple hardware' especially given the manufacturers are not in fact Apple, but Asustek and Quanta - the former outselling their own so called 'PC' laptops to Apple branded computers 10 to 1.
It is largely a well propogated myth that 'Apple hardware' is in any way better than that of other brands and there can certainly be no real claim of innovation in the industrial design department outside of superficial stylistic impositions on case and chassis design. Where cooling is concerned it can safely be said that the powerbooks are perhaps the most poorly designed of any portable's I've come across; many colleagues in fact prop their's up on a book just to allow for air to circulate underneath the thing.
Apple is a small company, they have no monopoly in any market, and in the market where they are the strongest (iPod) they do not show a tendency to prey on other manufacturers at the expense of the customer. They simply out-compete everyone else by producing a superior product (superior at least, in the definition of most consumers).
Microsoft on the other hand, has a monopoly in several markets, and exploits their position to maintain the monopoly at the expense of innovation, and ultimately the customer. Microsoft does not maintain their dominance in the market by producing a superior product (even the die-hard Microsoft apologists would conceed that point), they do it by force. Shady business practices, bastardization of standards, etc.
So yes, Apple pulls some stunts, like this one, which it should be criticized for. But to use this kind of misstep as an excuse for the absolutely unholy way Microsoft operates is to make a huge mathmatical mistake ;-). Microsoft has several orders of magnitude more impact on societ than does Apple, and therefore Microsoft -has- to be held to even higher standards.
So what? Do you really believe that Apple had the right to "copyright" items like overlapping windows?
Microsoft (filth tho they are) were IMO able to reimplement Apples GUI if they so chose.
Or do you believe that Apple should not be able to use items like tabbed dialogue boxes? (they appeared in windows first)
Apple had given Xerox shares in exchange for just a demo of what they had achieved at PARC.
Reference please. I see many Apple shills pulling this out, but it seems to be contradicted by Xerox sueing Apple.
Choice quote from the article:
Microsoft did not give Apple or Xerox anything.
so what?
I don't believe they should have - they didn't steal Apple's copyrighted code did they?
Apple are a great company - they make nice hardware, a reasonable Unix like system to run on it and are innovative in many ways.
But it doesn't mean we have to defend them when they're clearly wrong.
My pics.
Maybe they don't quite agree that the victim of a crime has to shoulder all the cost and hardship of the investigation.
This is not a criminal lawsuit. This is a civil case.
From Wikipedia:
In civil law cases, the "burden of proof" requires the plaintiff to convince the trier of fact (whether judge or jury) of the plaintiff's entitlement to the relief sought. This means that the plaintiff must prove each element of the claim, or cause of action, in order to recover.
If this wasn't the case, you would have companies making sweeping allegations and suing with no evidence. But no company would ever do that, would they?
You are right Office only showed up in 1990, however Word and Excel for the Mac were originally released in 1985.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel
I should know as I extensively used them in my first love affair with the Mac platform in undergraduate school 1984-1989.
B
The very link you provided contains the following statement: "Mr. Jobs had been permitted to visit the Xerox laboratory in return for allowing Xerox to invest in one of Apple's last private financing offerings." More links.
they didn't steal Apple's copyrighted code did they?For the GUI, no. For Quicktime (AVI), tes
Apple is a small company, they have no monopoly in any market, and in the market where they are the strongest (iPod) they do not show a tendency to prey on other manufacturers at the expense of the customer.
Then why can't I play songs purchased from iTunes on my Creative player?
Then why can't I play songs purchased from iTunes on my Creative player?
Same reason you can't see AIM buddies on your yahoo IM tool. Apple *created* their own network (iTunes). It's theirs to use. No other company has the RIGHT to inherently have their products work with with it. Compare and contrast this with Microsoft who has repeatedly *actively sabotaged* other companies' products from working with their system, especially when that system was pre-existing and open (hint: microsoft.com sent bad headers toOpera browsers).
Both Apple and Microsoft are evil to some degree, but the depth of their evil is entire leagues apart.
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