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.'"

Comments

It has *EVERYTHING* to do with fair use

[schon]

This has absolutely nothing to do with fair use.

Wrong, it has *EVERYTHING* to do with fair use, as evidenced by the letter from Apple:

The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Apple's intellectual property and is protected by U.S. copyright law. Linking to the manual on your website is an infringement of Apple's copyrights. We therefore must insist that you immediately take all necessary steps to remove the Service Source manual and any other Apple copyrighted material from your site and to prevent further unauthorized use or distribution of Apple intellectual property.

By playing the copyright card, Apple themselves are making this about copyright, and thus (by definition) fair use is a factor.

Note that NOWHERE in the letter that Apple sent, do they mention trade secrets (which is what you believe is going on here.)