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Apple Trade Secret Suit Final Arguments Today
An anonymous reader writes "The final day of arguments takes place today in Santa Clara, CA, in the suit between Apple and the bloggers who outed their secrets." From the article: "Apple often dispatched cease and desist letters to the editors or these sites or initiated internal investigations to smoke out which of its employees were leaking information. But the lawsuit against the Power Page marked the first time that Apple attempted to use California law protecting corporate trade secrets to suppress the early disclosure of its product development plans by a Web media outlet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Does, or the unnamed sources of the alleged information leak, contends that a ruling in this case could set a precedent that determines whether online sites can qualify as journalists who can work under First Amendment protections"
Apple have done Many Good Things (TM) but suing bloggers is not one of them.
They should have learnt byn ow you cant control the media.
This has got the best PR move you could make. Seriously, once the media picks up with this story and become major news, kiss potential Apple customers "good bye".
And to think I was going to switch this summer....
Life is not for the lazy.
Now would be a good time for Microsoft to offer discounts to major media outlets that use the internet. Or for Dell to offer discounts on systems. With Apple pissing off journalists, now would be a good time to get ahold of those people.
The same story ran 12 hours ago. Apple==Zealots==Page Hits
To 500 Apple apologist comments.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Does, or the unnamed sources of the alleged information leak, contends that a ruling in this case could set a precedent that determines whether online sites can qualify as journalists who can work under First Amendment protections
IANAL, so someone please educate me on this topic. If a reporter at the NYTimes comes into posession of information that is some company's trade secret and publishes it, is that protected under the first amendment? What about the Paducah Post? Does it have to do with simply bineg published? the amount circulation the periodical receives?
Does the EFF really want to call this a precedent setting case? What happens if they lose?
It's a bad precedence to assume you need to be a journalist to have First Ammendement protection. EVERYBODY has the full Rights of the First Ammendment. This kind of shit can get up to the Supreme Court where a ruling could decide that only journalists have that protection. Do we really want that?
-- Will program for bandwidth
To me, Apple's defense of its trade secrets is warranted and does not constitute violation of free speech.
Certain business language such as stock trading information, executive orders, are priveleged outside of the realm of free speech. That is, utterances such as someone giving insider trading information can have active results that cause harm to people; it thus qualifies as conduct, since it has a locutionary force that separates it from harmless, mundane speech. Similarly, an executive telling an accountant to shred documents regarding financial figures is a violation of business conduct laws, and a general telling his subordinates to murder innocent civilians violates war crimes laws.
This is no different. Disclosing trade secrets has done and does do appreciable damage to the company for whom they are secrets. Whether or not it is sensible for Apple to go after blogs to protect its trade information is a matter I haven't really decided on. However, to me, it makes sense in the same way as Rudolph Guiliani's policy of going after small-time lawbreakers to deter the bigger offenses - go after jaywalking, so that it looks like you're tough on crime in general. Similarly, Apple is obviously protecting what appears like trivial information about an upcoming product to prevent bloggers from thinking they can get away with disclosing larger trade information.
Apple obviously made the wager that allowing people to disclose trade secrets at all damages them in such a way that all the free advertising in the world can't make up for. I'm not sure I would have made the same wager, but I can respect Apple's decision to make it.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
I find it difficult to conceive that a court will rule that the first ammendment protection of the press only covers those with multibillion dollar media conglomerates or old family owned newspapers behind them. Freedom of the press is freedom of speech as it applies to written or photographic material and should be no less free than speech and is not limited to those with journalism degrees.
Whether the trade secret law applies may be another matter beyond my knowledge, but the fact is that the website in question did not sign a non-disclosure agreement with Apple and is free to publish what it likes provided it is not libelous. That includes publishing information that Apple insiders chose to disclose to the site in violation of their agreements with Apple not to do so. Apple is obscessive about secrecy and it will just have to learn to live with leaks or Steve Jobs will just have to close the company down, fire all the workers and hire oompa loopas.
Really, they are nonsense. Whether a blogger is a journalist or not is a completely unimportant sidenote in this whole case. It is 99.9 percent sure that the decision will be absolutely the same, whether a journalist publishes trade secrets or a blogger. The only difference is that an experienced journalist would most likely not have the stupidity to do such a thing, and a journalist working for any newspaper would be confronted by the newspaper's legal team that would stop him before he gets everyone into trouble.
Then EFF's brilliant argument that Apple should have had all their employees pass lie detector tests or ask them to declare under oath that it wasn't them who leaked the information. So what would happen if Apple tried that?
Where I work this would happen:
Lawyer: Dear developer #1, please take this lie detector test.
Developer #1: F*** off.
Lawyer: Take this lie detector test or you will be fired.
Manager: F*** off. You are not going to fire any of my developers.
Lawyer: Dear developer #2, please take this lie detector test.
Developer #2: F*** off.
And so on. Seriously, would any of the readers here be willing to take a lie detector test in a situation like that? What a piece of nonsense.
Disclosing trade secrets has done and does do appreciable damage to the company for whom they are secrets.
???!!!
Disclosing Apple's "trade secrets" in casu means telling the public about some upcoming launch -- and this will enhance the hype about the launched product, thus enhancing sales (I would know, I do have a fifth-gen iPod... which was hyped this exact way). Absolutely no harm was done: hell, I think the offending Doe could even prove in court that he actually leaked the launch to HELP Apple's sales.
Apple is pissed off because they don't know how to find a leak (you know, the colorant in the water etc.)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Now we can finally share a common ground!!!onehundredandelevenbilliononehundrededand elevenmillononehundredeleventhousandandelevencents 1!!!
Corporations have a "right" to privacy as well. When secret information is of substantial value to the corporation and that information being secret does no harm to anyone, and they put forth every prudent means to keep that secret, then they have the right to sue those who cause them the economic damages by violations of contract or industrial espionage. The journalists in question may have the right to choose contempt of court instead of giving up their sources, but they do not have the right to do anything they want. A journalist is not above the law.
To 500 ignorant comments not realizing the lawsuit would be the same and have the same outcome even if the blogger were a "real" journalist.
Hey wait, there's one now!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Whether the trade secret law applies may be another matter beyond my knowledge, but the fact is that the website in question did not sign a non-disclosure agreement with Apple and is free to publish what it likes provided it is not libelous.
Those two statements are pretty contradictory - the first part says you don't understand trade secret law, the second claims that the person has the right to publish anything that falls into his hands regardless of it being a trade secret.
Apple is free to do what they are doing, which is NOT to sue the blogger but instead demand he reveal the documents sent to him and the source in question. Just as Apple would do with any other news outlet who did the same thing.
I guess the blogger is perfectly free to refuse, and go to jail just like a Real Journalist(tm) would. That's sure showing Apple!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Disclosing Apple's "trade secrets" in casu means telling the public about some upcoming launch -- and this will enhance the hype about the launched product, thus enhancing sales
What you discounting is the ability for competitors to make similar announcements on the same day (or beofre) that look just as good, based on this information. The idea that only good can come of secrets being leaked is madness.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That suit looks like it could easily be covered by whistleblower laws that protect the public interest - just because Ford SAID the documents were trade secrets does not make them so, and it certainly was in the best interests of the public to know the information they revealed.
In Apple's case the data clearly was a trade secret, as the documents presented to the judge by Apple showed (and the judge agreed whcih is why the lawsuit noves forward even now). I don't think revealing that the mini was about to arrive was a matter of public saftey.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Aristotle,
Did you RTFA? These people did not TAKE the information - they PUBLISHED it.
By all means, prosecute those Apple employees who leaked the info. They have no doubt violated any number of privacy and non-disclosure agreements any self-respecting company requires all employees to sign as a condition of employment.
These bloggers, journalists or not, had no such agreements with Apple nor can it be proven that they knew Apple considered this information "secret" - a designation that has no official meaning outside of the federal government's classification process.
So now you need specific credentials to acquire First Amendament protections. Silly me. That's what I get for believing that the law and especially the Constitiution applied to everbody. Funny that I don't see journalists specifically mentioned in the amendment. How did it get to be that only they deserve that protection? Is this something like only well regulated militias are permitted to keep and bear arms, as opposed to the right of the people? Well, if Apple wins, it's just another nail in the coffin for the Bill of Rights. Not that it really means anything anywore. Too bad nobody is standing up for the Bill of Rights as much as they are for immigrants rights(not that they're wrong for doing that).
What?
Hey Rolfwind, your straw man called and wants his false argument back.
The Constitution provides no protection to the press from withholding information when a crime has been committed. Over the years, journalists have gone to jail to protect their sources. As a result of this, some states have enacted whistleblower laws, to help journalists protect sources when having the information released in the first place is in the public's interest. In certain types of cases, where a company or branch of government is committing some malfeasance, it's in the public's interest to know, even if the divulging of the information might be considered a crime or a breach of contract.
If Apple had been dumping toxic waste, and an employee tipped off some bloggers, then the whistleblower laws would protect the bloggers and the bloggers' source.
The lower court that ruled in Apple's favor stated that there is a big difference between "the public interest" and something that might merely be "interesting to the public." The court made it a point to say that it was not distinguishing between bloggers and journalists. What it did say was that releasing information about Apple's products under development did not rise to a level of protecting the public welfare.
Lastly, and most importantly, both the article and the summary got it wrong. Apple is not suing Powerpage. Apple subpoenaed Powerpage. Apple isn't trying to shut down anyone, other than the employee or employees that are committing a crime by revealing trade secrets to the Apple Rumor sites.
I can tell you this: The whistle blower laws are important protections, but this is not the right place to battle for them. The EFF has really lost me on this one. They're trivializing important laws by continuing to fight this. Shouldn't they be focusing more of their resources on the RIAA?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
There is _no_ competitors. Where an Apple product is in -- especially iPods -- its market share is segregated and guaranteed.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Why should I have to be a journalist to benefit in full from the First Amendment?
The difference between publishing something, and merely saying it, is diminishing as technology improves. If the law still tries to distinguish between the two when they become identical, it will become ridiculous.
The people taking up the other 20% of the market would be very amused to hear you claim the iPod marketshare is locked, or in any way "gauranteed" - there have been plenty of other products with a huge marketshare, that are now relics because the company mistepped. Remember Walkmans? Back in the day they were just like iPods are now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't have a right to gossip; in fact you have a responsibility to refrain from it when it hurts others. Gossip is meddling and a breach of trust.
On the other hand, when the topic at hand is about a real risk, and of concern to the person you're talking to, then it isn't gossip, it's whistleblowing. In that case, it's your responsibility to make sure the right people know about the risk. It's really about making a good decision in order to protect people from harm.
The world has a surplus of gossips and a shortage of whistleblowers. Which one are you, at this moment?
Damn those pesky terrorists
Since when do you have to be a journalist to realize your First Amendment Protections...???
I thought those were extended to everyone...
Maybe I was wrong?
--E--
The EFF-Bashing article failed to mention that the EFF helped to supplant DES (Data Encryption Standard) by building a hardware-based DES Cracker (codenamed "Deep Crack") that decrypted a DES-encrypted message in only 56 hours. Also, the EFF protested the NSA's push to use SkipJack and the Clipper Chip. I do not know how much influence the EFF had in preventing the use of the Clipper Chip, but at least the Clipper Chip did not butt in to the workings of the soon-to-be-popular Internet.
While I do agree that the EFF has not always been effective (especially in recent years), they have succeeded a FEW times.
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
So Apple have something to hide... they must being doing something wrong! Isn't that why all citizens are being wiretapped and endlessly monitored? Don't kid yourselves it is ALL of you! Why are corporations the only ones who are allowed privacy? I declare myself as a corporation. Don't talk to me, go through my company. Hey, if that dies, i'll just start another. Don't blame or prosecute ME, it was the COMPANY! The internet is a democracy because you can say whatever the hell you want! As soon as that stops in ANY way, bye-bye democratic internet. Why does everyone just lie down and take it in the ass? You should resist EVERY step. And here's another thing. It's called Catch-22: IF bloggers =/ journalists. Then surely they are effectively just telling their 'friends' and anyone in earshot something they know. If they are not going to be granted the same RIGHTS as journalists, then they shouldn't be expected to hold any of the RESPONSIBILITY of journalists!! Hence: NO F**KING CASE!! Apple has always been essentially no-one, except to Apple enthusiasts, but now they're taking off in such a big way this is just witnessing the begininning of a growing company getting drunk on it's own lust for power.
I would love to see the comments if it was msft instead of apple. I doubt alot would be less forgiving to msft than they were to apple.
Anyway, almost all reports (including those by "real" journalists) ignore an important part of the original ruling.
IOW the judge ignored the argument regarding "not a real journalist" by Apple's lawyers, and would infact have made the same decision if a "real" journalist had published the documents. Which is probably why "real" journalists keep ignoring that part of the ruling. Further:Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
You lost a potential customer. What's more important, the first ammendment, or some lame ass trade secret? What a joke, sheesh.
am I still banned?
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Should have previewed that.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo