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Apple Pushes to Unmask Product Leaker
Zack Wells writes "Should online journalists receive the same rights as traditional reporters?
Apple claims they should not. Its lawyers say in court documents that Web scribes are not 'legitimate members of the press' when they reveal details about forthcoming products that the company would prefer to keep confidential. That argument has drawn stiff opposition from bloggers and traditional journalists.
This is related to a case of an Apple news site, PowerPage.org, who leaked information about a FireWire audio interface for GarageBand that has been codenamed 'Asteroid.' The subpoena is on hold during the appeal.
In the lawsuit, filed in late 2004, Apple is not suing the Mac news sites directly, but instead has focused on still-unnamed 'John Doe' defendants. The subpoena has been sent to Nfox.com, PowerPage's e-mail provider, which says it will comply if legally permitted."
What was it the 1st Amendment said about Congress shall make no law...?
The freedom of expression is not a license to aid and abet a theft. A journalist can be held liable for slander, prosecuted for incitement to riot, etc, etc. The first amendment secures our right to criticise and offend people, not to violate their property rights.
Trade secrets are the property of a corporation's shareholders. That's a hell of a lot of people, in case you didn't realize it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Heck, Apple can't have any of that word of mouth that might actually excite the market about their products! How could they keep that 4% market penetration with all those people talking about their products?
if it greatly puts single persons or companies (etc.pp.) to an unfair disadvantage to others.
I tried going to the newspaper to explain that SmithCorp was dumping toxic waste into the school's playground, but they refused to publish it even with my photographs of guys in bunny suits dumping 55 gallon drums off the back of a company truck. Something about putting the company at an unfair disadvantage. Of course, it could have also been that the local paper's owned by SmithCorp.
Hang on, doorbell...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The difference between a 'blogger' and a 'journalist' is the same difference between letting some dude with a kitchen knife circumcise your child on a kitchen table and letting a surgeon do it in an operating theatre of a decent hospital. Big difference, and if you can't see it blame your ignorance.