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Apple Sics Lawyers on SomethingAwful
bheer writes "Apple has sent a threatening letter to SomethingAwful about a post in its forums that describes how to fix the overheating in some MacBook Pros by applying thermal paste properly, according to a post on Gizmodo. The post includes a brief excerpt from Apple's Service Source Manual which Apple wants removed. Gizmodo continues: 'the real problem [is] that the image shows the extremely sloppy manufacturing process that is causing the MacBook Pro to run at temperatures as high as a 95 degrees Celcius under full load.'"
The thread in question:= &threadid=1864582
h readid=1867138
:)
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s
Lowtax's response:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?t
Posted anonymously to avoid accusations of karma whoring
Let me save everyone the trouble...
Apple is acting like Apple always does... like an asshole. They are caught out in a fairly major QA problem and trying to lawyer their way around it. Same as every other large company. Mac fanbois will of course totally defend their noble defense of their 'intellectual property' even though this case is a textbook example of fair use. The fanbois will also 'like totally defend the quality of Apple hardware against that Dell crap.' And while they have cause for that in general it will stink of slavish devotion because of just how busted Apple is on this case.
That 'bout cover everything?
Democrat delenda est
http://www.somethingawful.com/legal/
lose != loose
The problem is that Something Awful aren't hosting the picture, it is hosted by someone else elsewhere. Something Awful only have a link to the picture in a thread not the actual picture itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_un
I'm not really sure how to address your second point. It's either irrelevant, or Apple should be claiming SA divulged Trade Secrets.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Link that works, with pic http://uk.gizmodo.com/2006/05/04/thermal_greasy_ap ple_sics_lawy.html
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
Perhaps this may have something:
http://www.applerepairmanuals.com/
(I'm not a Mac person, so I don't know.)
But I agree with the GP, offering snippets of anything isn't copyright infringement, newspapers, critics and reviewers have long offered small sections of movies, articles for discussion purposes. Educators also rely on this (quoting) to provide a piece of relevant information to their students.
There are boundaries to this, but a "snippet" isn't it.
Site Temporarily Unavailable
We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.
error id: "bad_httpd_conf"
I think that says a lot right there.
Unauthorized reprint of a manual.
Unauthorized reprint of at most a single page from a manual.
A take down notice due to valid infringement?
17 U.S.C. 107
Please discuss with reference to your legal education and bar admissions.
I believe he's talking about taking a picture of the inside of your own Mac and using that instead of the picture from the manual.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Astroturf much?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
And the thread in question that Apple is bitching about. Don't know if/when it will be "gold" so that it's publicly available, but I'm guessing soonish.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Look at the bolt holes all around there. The logic board gets cranked WAY down onto those three pads. Any extra heat sink compound will get squeezed out of there like play-doh. The only problem that can arise by too much thermal compound is if you apply a thick coat and don't compress the parts together to squeeze out the excess, and therefore leave a larger than expected layer of compound between the component and the heat spreader/sink.
With the amount of screws being used to secure down the logic board, and the closeness of the bolts to the chips, there is zero chance of the layer of thermal compound being too thick and causing overheating. (btw, it's nonconductive so it really doesn' t matter if it oozes around a little)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
And now, they're not suing SomethingAwful, it's a fairly standard C&D notice.
Now, I'm not saying what Apple is doing is right (far from it), and it's certainly justifiable to believe that their behaviour merits avoiding their products. But if you include actual, you know, facts in your rants, you might convince more people.
Have they?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
This material isn't published, all Apple service manuals are considered confidential trade secrets.
As Linuxmop pointed out below, the entire manual is here (and now it's on my hard drive). If it was a trade secret, it isn't any more.
http://www.repairyourmac.com/macbook-pro.pdf
Actually no, Asustek is contracted to make the consumer notebooks. The high end varieties are made by Quanta.
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
If you push something down onto thermal grease and it comes out the sides, you put WAY too much on.
Thermal grease is ONLY to smooth out imperfections in the surface. While it has reasonable temperature conductivity properties, it's still a lot worse than a straight metal-to-metal connection, partially due to the lack of electrical conductivity (and therefore, lower overall metal density). When spread appropriately, you should still see the surface of the thing you are coating, along with spots of the grease where the original topography fell below the base surface line (however slightly). Coat both surfaces like this, and you're golden.
Really, what you want is a tiny, tiny drop spread around by a squeegee-like straight edge, like a plastic credit card. Put a little too much on, and your temperatures will rise. Put as much on as it appears in the picture, and your temperatures will be through the roof.
The ______ Agenda
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
---
Do I really need to walk Apple through the factors to prove to them that this is fair use? It's pretty damn clear! Ok, fine, I'll do it anyway.
Preamble) Seems to me it qualifies as criticism, comment, and teaching.
1) This isn't commercial. They aren't reselling your manual. This is an "educational purpose." Get over yourselves.
2) It's a technical manual. There are two types of copyrighted works: 1) factual and 2) creative. This is in the first category. That means less protection for you, Apple.
3) It's only one little picture. The amount is minimal.
4) There is no effect. People still have to buy the manual if they want the manual.
Hey, SomethingAwful wins on all four elements! STFU Apple.
*I am not a lawyer. But I can read a statute.
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
The word you are looking for here is stooge or shill. Astroturf doesn't have that posted-on-the-website kind of openness.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Try rubbing alcohol. You can buy some pricier cleaning agents from the same companies that make the pastes too (like ArctiClean), but honestly any high % alcohol and a soft cloth should work just as well. If you're cleaning off a shit-ton of paste though, you might want to start with a razor blade to scrape off the excess. Then clean with the alcohol, let it dry a minute or two, clean your blade, then slap on some new stuff and shave it smooth. Wrestle the heatsink back on, close it up, and you're good to go.
From the opinion of Justice Story in Folsom v. Marsh, as reported in Wikipedia's Fair Use entry:In other words, what this judgment states is that a work is considered fair use if its intent is to provide commentary or criticism. In the case of the Apple service manual, it is clearly a critique of Apple's mishandling of the processor in the first place. The author of the post is clearly making the logical case that Apple is doing a poor job by posting the damning evidence of the service manual, and making the logical case that had they not screwed it up in the first place, you wouldn't have had to repair the thermal paste. I don't know what could be more of a case of valid critique than this.
As such, it seems pretty obvious to me that Apple is trying to prevent the criticism of whatever shoddy computer building practices it might have, rather than trying to protect its copyright.
IANALBIKHTSWRIFOMFF. (I am not a lawyer but I know how to see what's right in front of my fucking face)
Really? Where? I see it neither in TFA, nor in the manual linked to in this /. comment.
http://outcampaign.org/
I am a mac user, but I'm also an electronic technician. This is not FUD, this is incorrect advice in Apple's service manual, and I'm all for correction to be as widely disseminatd as possible.
Too much thermal goo is one of the more common assembly errors I've seen, all because of a misunderstanding of its purpose. Too many people think, "the more, the better" and it's just not so. The best thermal bond is metal to metal, but there are gaps between the metal surfaces that don't conduct well if they are filled with air, so we want to fill them with something more conductive. If the layer of thermal compound is so thick that it pushes apart the metal surfaces, it defeats its purpose.
Its NOT free speech, get off your fucking high horse and learn something about US law before you come in thinking you know everything.
Oh, please site the laws that were broken. A NDA is not a law binding document. By breaking it, you are only breaking a contractual agreement with said party. SomethingAweful, as many have noted, only linked to the document in question. The "offending" document was hosted from an outside site. Linking is not punishable (see Microsoft vs. Ticketmaster) or else companies like Google would be out of business. Hell, I'm not even a lawyer and I know more about U.S. law than you do. Thats pretty bad.
Jesus fucking christ I hope morons like you arnt allowed to vote in the US. People like you are the reason Bush won.
It's very un-American to tell people to not vote. Besides getting a basic understanding of the laws in this country, maybe you should learn a little about a little thing known as democracy.
The post includes a brief excerpt from Apple's Service Source Manual which Apple wants removed.
I have mod points, but I couldn't find anyone pointing this out to mod up. The post includes a link to the entire service manual. Apple's complaint is NOT about the single page showing the thermal grease, it's about the posting of a PDF of their copyrighted service manual in its entirety. Now, they're still threatening the wrong person, since the file is hosted somewhere else, but there is real infringement going on.
...so, as Apple wasn't planning to sell the manual, that strengthens the "fair use" defense (when judges weigh up whether someone's "fair use", they tend to include this as part of the criteria.)
Apple has an economic interest in assuring the quality of their service providers, which is why they only sell spare parts and provide service manuals to authorized providers who have passed certification exams.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's pretty obvious you don't have a clue about how electronics is manufactured. They don't just tell the contractor "build us a laptop". Apple would have a custom design done by their in-house engineers, and produce all the manufacturing data for the contractor. Steve Jobs tells engineers what to do, the manufacturers build exactly what they tell them to build. A company the size of Apple would have their own test engineers, production engineers, and QA teams on-site, supervising the process and ensuring appropriate quality levels. As far as shoddy workmanship: why would a large contract manufacturer have inferior quality to an in-house team? If anything, it would be the other way around. Defects like the grease issue are most likely the fault of an engineer specifying an incorrect application procedure, and QA personnel overlooking the problem.
In any case, production is highly automated and managed by an ERP system. It's not like Steve Jobs could just walk down to the manufacturing floor and tell them what to do. That will get your ISO9001 certification revoked in a hurry. If you want even a minor change, you have to issue an ECO and do all sorts of paperwork. Besides, there is nothing that can be changed on the assembly line. By that time, the boards have been manufactured, the parts and mechanical assemblies procured, and the tooling set up. The only benefit to doing manufacturing in-house is that you have more control over when things get built. Not an issue when you are ordering hundreds of thousands of units.