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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 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.
No, that's not the "real problem". Apple goes after anyone, anywhere, that ever posts or reproduces anything from their service manuals, which it considers proprietary, in whole or in part. It doesn't matter what circumstances in which this was posted: Apple would have gone after them, regardless.
Also, the service manual doesn't represent the "manufacturing process". It represents service instructions for service technicians.
However, all of that aside, Apple applies a stunningly ridiculous and inappropriate amount of thermal paste to the CPU and GPU in the MacBook Pro. It apparently does this both in the manufacturing process and the service process - the description and pictures of about ten times the amount of thermal paste than should actually be applied in the service manual only underscores the magnitude of the mistake. For those who might not be aware, thermal paste is not a case of "the more, the better": after a point, it fails to transfer heat, and the heat gets dissipated in an uncontrolled and unintended - and potentially damaging - way. And that's what's happening in the MacBook Pro. When a proper amount of thermal paste is applied, the MacBook Pro runs MUCH cooler, with heat actually transferring to the heatpipe, and the fans turning on when necessary, resulting in a massive drop in operating temperature (not to mention feeling like you're using a small campfire on your lap).
Inevitable Apple bashing aside, I'm actually quite surprised that, given its attention to detail, no one at Apple in any of its product design, engineering, manufacturing, or service operations, nor anyone at Asustek (the contractor that manufactures the MacBook Pro), realized that this is an utterly stupid amount of paste to be applying. I'm just dumbfounded that this made it through whatever QA is in place (and, again, Apple bashing and first revision products aside, keep in mind that Apple has the BEST QA and least need for service across the entire industry, consistently, and has for years, according to consumer reporting and tracking organizations like Consumer Reports).
In any case, Apple also hasn't commented or acknowledged this because it NEVER does so until there is a fix in place (or when it knows a specific fix is already in the pipeline). And yes, it is a "simple" fix, but as anyone who understands a complicated manufacturing process knows, it can take a while to implement any change.
In any event, because (regardless of what anyone may or may not say) Apple is the best in terms of responding to and remedying these kinds of problems when compared to other vendors[1], I have no doubt this will be resolved. I do hope Apple provides a free process for current owners to have this problem resolved at any Apple service facility.
[1] In other words, if anyone is going to say "Apple sucks" on this front, 1.) anyone can come up with service or product nightmare anecdotes from any vendor, and 2.) all other vendors are worse in all categories, if you accept Consumer Reports' rating processes.
I don't know whether fair use applies
They're reproducing a copyrighted image for the purpose of reporting on and criticizing the company that produced the image. This is the exact sort of thing fair use is supposed to exist for in the first place. If fair use doesn't exist to prevent copyright owners from allowing people to exerpt those copyrighted materials in order to respond to them, then why do we even have it?
Problem solved. Why is this such a big deal?
Perhaps Apple is embarrased by this, but the behavior doesn't really offer proof. Apple has send Cease and Desist letters to sites posting service manuals and images out of service manuals many times before.
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
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
No, its not even a page. The SA forums have a *link* to a page on another server, owned by another entity. Even the original way it was an utter perversion of the law, but with a link its completely fucking ridiculous.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Except they're not going after the hosting site or the user responsible for the post. They're going after the forum in which that user posted a link.
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.
Why is it news everytime Somthing trivial regarding Apple happens. Not once have they come up with anything truely innovative that hasn't already been done (allbeit in a more shiny box I'm sure). They rape and pillage FOS software with little attribution.
What I'm trying to say is I'm sick of trivial apple stories all the time.
This is not a "company's private information" but the service manual. This is freedom of the press/speech in it's purest form. Unless you think a snippet from a page of Apples' service manual can cause it to loss of IP value (sales) purely based on the content shown (I was unaware they were in the service manual business).
As a small apple shareholder, I request that the company become less litigation happy. It's souring relations with the wrong crowds which could have otherwise been attracted to it's product. Pardon the pun, but stop being sour apples:(
No, that's not the "real problem". Apple goes after anyone, anywhere, that ever posts or reproduces anything from their service manuals, which it considers proprietary, in whole or in part. It doesn't matter what circumstances in which this was posted: Apple would have gone after them, regardless.
It doesn't matter what Apple considers them, they should be published copyrighted material and governed by the rules that apply to such materials. As such, posting a one page excerpt out of a manual that must be several hundred pages ought to be considered "fair use", in particular given the purpose that it's being posted for.
No, TFA is right: Apple wants this information removed for the sole reason that it embarrasses them. Verbal acrobatics like "considers them proprietary" are just an attempt to hide that fact. In the end, Apple had two choices: tolerate it or send in their legal team, and they have chose the latter.
Apple is the best in terms of responding to and remedying these kinds of problems when compared to other vendors
Actually, when you look at surveys and analyses of service quality, Apple is in the top, but they are not always the best. My own experience with their service on a top-of-the-line Powerbook has been that they are trying, but that it may take them several tries to fix it.
I showed my father the service manual picture. He said (and I quote) "Holy moley! Nobody uses that much thermal grease!"
Yep, Apple fucked up this one.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Now, about the first rev thing: why is it only Apple with these problems? you never hear anyone say "dont buy that Dell/HP/Lenovo, its a rev A, wait for the QC issues to be fixed in the rev b"
I thought that these problems werer because they were the only mass-PPC hardware vendor, but that is now de-bunked -- and on that note, no one at Intel evaluated a finidhed laptop?? God knows, as much as Apple throws the I-word around, you would think it is a partnership!
I saw the picture of their service manual on the SA forums. It's shows the guy putting an entire tube of thermal grease on an area that is around 1/2 square inch. So, after all is said and done in the manufacturing process, Macbook pro's probably have around four tubes of thermal grease in them. That really is insane. [b]One tube alone[/b] should be able to do three or four laptops.
g
I'm suprised the laptops didn't outright fail due to the heat.
If anyone is interested, here is what the parent poster is talking about:
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/7541/lol1qe.jp
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!
Nobody seems to be addressing the real issue here. As noted in Lowtax's post, what's ridiculous about this lawsuit is that Apple is taking legal action against SA for something that isn't even on their servers. All that is posted in the offending thread is a link to the service manual on someone else's webspace. Apple threatening SA and their ISP is absurd, they have done absolutely nothing wrong.
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
is it ok to hate Apple now?
So, if I say anything bad about Apple computers, their crack (cocane) team of lawyers will sue me? Well, in that case, I think I'll do something to tick them off as well...
*stands on soap box* Apparently, their voice command program which requires the ESC key to toggle the microphone interferes with any vim commands that require you to escape back into command mode when you are using Darwin, Apple's version of xterm.
Come and get me you lawyer bastards!!!!
PS: Macs are ghey, eat babies, and kill kittens!
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
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.
>Apple service manuals are private information. If you don't believe me, try to order
>one.
Put it in another context. If their manual could be used to demonstrate that the company had discriminatory labor practices, or if they were aiding an enemy of the US, it would be acceptable to make that information public because the public need to know this information supersedes any protection that may be reserved under copyright law.
A less extreme context would be, if the manual illustrated a defect that made the product physically dangerous to the user. The scenario in the article is NOT terribly distant from that, and the line does not have to be drawn close to "this defect may cause the unit to catch fire."
The public interest of this disclosure is more important than any case the company can make for its suppression.
The only exception would be, for instance, if it turned out that this is not the actual service manual that is used in the field. Then it is misinformation and the company has a right to not be falsely represented in the media.
If it's an accurate criticism, the company has very little that they can actually ask a court to order.
There is no lawsuit on this, and there won't be one. Nothing to see here.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Apple is going to sue now that /. has a link to a page containing a link to the picture!
English is easier said than done.
The last time I was serviced with that much thermal paste it cost me 50 bucks and I was sore for a week.
The entire service manual is available online in various places (e.g. http://www.repairyourmac.com/macbook-pro.pdf). Why is Apple freaking out about a small excerpt in a forum? The simplest explanation is that they are embarrassed and are trying to cover it up.
Whoever leaked that document to somethingawful broke the law.
Out of interest, what law is that they're breaking? I understand that "trade secrets" have some measure of legal protection, but I don't think merely claiming something is "confidential" automatically makes it a trade secret. Failing that, seems to me the worst anyone disseminating this "confidential" information could be accused of is contract violation. Which is not "breaking the law", it's breaking a contract.
Unless you're saying the law they're breaking is copyright infringement, in which case a fair use claim could certainly be argued and your first sentence is invalidated.
Unless there's something else? I thought the only IP with any measure of protection was patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets...
Unless you listen to SCO, of course :)
The only exception would be, for instance, if it turned out that this is not the actual service manual that is used in the field. Then it is misinformation and the company has a right to not be falsely represented in the media.
But then it wouldn't be copyright infringement, it would be libel.
Once again, people are ascribing to malice something that's more easily explained by stupidity. And in situations like this, corporations are profoundly stupid. Apple clearly has a policy that to hassle people who "steal" their IP. The only way to implement such a policy is to assign some low-ranking dweeb to cruise the web and look for this "stolen" IP. When he sees it, he fires off a C&D letter. He does not have the discretion to say "Oh, I should give them a pass, that's probably fair use."
You've obviously never worked in any private organization bigger than a little league team. If you had, you'd know that Apple, and all enterprises like it, have thousands of discretion-free low-level dweebs like the one just described. Ascribing some deeper purpose to such people is silly.
Wrong, it has *EVERYTHING* to do with fair use, as evidenced by the letter from Apple:
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.)
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
Well Rich is sure to make the most of the free publicity; the stupidty demonstrated by Apple lawyers is the kind of material on which he thrives. Apple is dealing with someone who has built his career on the art of savage ridicule. If you want to be mercilessly mocked on the World Wide Web then have a laywer send a letter to Lowtax.
So Apple's clownboat lawyers have just spawned a wave of Anti-Apple publicity. What might have been confined to SomethingAwful has now propagated to Gizmodo and Slashdot and will spread from there. And the lawyers have not only spread bad publicity about Apple, they are generating more of it themselves: Not only has Apple screwed up with heat sink grease, Apple has screwed up AND their lawyers are trying to cover it up. Apple would benefit from keeping a tighter reign on its lawyers; because they see only the legal aspects of any issue, they are prone to do great harm to Apple's public image in pursuit of insignificant legal points.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
They're not "suing anyone they don't like", they're defending copyrighted material or protecting trademarks- and they are famous for doing so, since long before Jobs was re-hired. Shockingly they HAVE to, or said copyright/trademarks are diluted. If I start using the logo of GrooWanderer, Inc and you know about it but do nothing- and then BigCompany Inc comes along and does it, your case against BigCompany Inc is severely diluted because -I- did it and you didn't seem to care.
Many look at lawsuits as something like the death penalty or a nuclear first-strike. They're not. It is a civil matter taken before authority for resolution. A cease-and-desist is a PRELIMINARY step (MANY steps before a lawsuit) saying "That ain't cool. Do something about it, or we'll have to take it to the courts." The language is written to be clear and unambiguous- and hence valid in court later when the judge says, "Okay, so...did you let them know they were violating your copyright?", you can say "Absolutely and in no uncertain terms." It's not written to impress 15 year old internet commentators.
This isn't about "embarassing photos", and comparing Apple to a genuine cult is a severe dilution of the term "cult"- dangerously so. It is about protecting copyrighted material that is provided exclusively to internal Apple staff and employees of Apple Certified Resellers. I agree that it'd be great if such material were available free, but Apple has made a business decision to leverage "Apple Certified Reseller" qualifications, so they don't want any old Joe Shmoe having access to those manuals. That's their perrogative and their right.
If you don't like it- that's just too bad; don't buy Apple products, speak your mind to your representatives, run for office, whatever you like to try and change the law, or move to a small island with Richard Stallman and enjoy sharing you "copylefted" works- but otherwise, you sound like a guy in court because he punched someone in the face, angry because he doesn't believe in a law against punching people in the face.
I use Apple products (typing this on a Macbook, my 4th powerbook, oops, I mean laptop, oops, I mean "portable.") I have a linux box sitting under an Xserve in the basement. My firewall runs a FreeBSD based distribution. I have a machine under my desk that runs win2k and Ubuntu occasionally, though less-so now that emulation and virtualization work decently on the macbook.
I recognized the strengths of various platforms a decade ago. When someone asks me "should I get a Mac", my answer is a question- "what do you do with your computer?" When they ask "should I install Linux", I judge their experience level and factor that heavily into my answer, because Linux still isn't remotely ready for prime-time desktop use by people who just want their computer to work. I hate Apple fanboys (to paraphrase the author of the "Apple Product Cycle"- I'd love to go to Macworld some time, but strongly suspect I'd end up starting a brawl).
However, my new hatred is for "Appleworms"; people who spout "I hate apple" followed by some moderately insane rambling. If you've got a legitimate beef, fine- and I have a bunch for Apple. Otherwise, for god sakes, please shut up. Anyone remotely intelligent sees you spouting your "opinion" for attention. I've seen people call Apple computer/iPod owners "sheep". Complain about or "cite" a never-ending stream of problems that don't exist (my favorite: "you can't resize the dock, it takes up a chunk of your screen!") Heard people laugh at Apple's single-digit market share and describe it as a "failure" (ignoring the billion dollars in cash reserves, sales on the uptake, stock that consistently meets or exceeds analyst expectations- or the fact that Apple's market valu
Please help metamoderate.
Files are never hosted on the forums, so Apple should be going after the person who is hosting the material. Apple doesn't understand how teh intarweb works.
The really interesting thing is that the Apple legal department uses Microsoft Entourage as an e-mail client. Lowtax posted the headers in his response (posted above by someone else).
Received: from mail-out3.apple.com (mail-out3.apple.com [17.254.13.22])
by mx3.somethingawful.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E4981B523C
for webmaster@somethingawful.com; Tue, 2 May 2006 21:38:35 -0500 (CDT)
Received: from relay8.apple.com (relay8.apple.com [17.128.113.38])
by mail-out3.apple.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k432cUP8027258
for webmaster@somethingawful.com; Tue, 2 May 2006 19:38:30 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from [17.193.14.216] (unknown [17.193.14.216])
by relay8.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with ESMTP id 5CB7E17B;
Tue, 2 May 2006 19:38:30 -0700 (PDT)
User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.2.3.060209
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 19:38:28 -0700
Subject: Urgent Legal Notice from Apple Computer
From: Copyright Agent copyrightagent@apple.com
To: webmaster@somethingawful.com
Message-ID: C07D65B4.1430E%copyrightagent@apple.com
Thread-Topic: Urgent Legal Notice from Apple Computer
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
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)
How about this:
They did not redistribute the whole manual. They used a snippet of the manual in an article. This is fair use under copyright law. Because this is fair use, Apple has insufficient legal positioning to request the photo's removal. As such, they're attempting to intimidate Something Awful. That's why this article gets face time.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
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.
Yes, having too much heat sink goop between in the thermal interface is bad. Yes, you need to have a very small amount in that area.
But there is nothing wrong with putting more on as long as you apply sufficient pressure to squeeze the extra out. And that is what Apple's picture shows. A thin film in the thermal interface area and big globs around the interface area.
The film on the interface area is slightly thick, but it's not so thick that it would cause significant problems. It's not any thicker than the film that I saw on my NVidia 6800 Ultra or 7800GT when I removed the heatsinks to replace them with other cooling solutions.
And as to the lawyers thing, Apple just said to remove the link. It is illegal in this country to link to copyrighted material, not just to host it. Otherwise, bittorrent trackers would be legal, right?
This story is way out of control lately. I'm glad people are getting the message that putting a lot of TIM (thermal interface material, also known as heat sink goop) on is unnecessary. Maybe next time around they could actually learn enough about cooling to know what to look for in a picture of others' work.
Additionally, note that electrical conductivity is not an important characteristic of TIM. In fact, it is typically electrically non-conductive so that if you have a little spread out onto nearby circuits (say, the multiplier resistors on top of an Athlon) it won't short stuff out. TIM only has to conduct heat. It does it better than air (which is what would otherwise fill a void space), and that's about it. That's why you use as little as possible.
Honestly this is all a mountain out of a molehill. All someone had to do was post a picture of their own laptop and not use Apple's copyright restricted info and this wouldn't have even happened.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
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, to recap: a small excerpt was published for the sake of commenting upon it (fair use already), the manual isn't even for sale (strengthens case), and the commenting was actually concerned with making public a defect, in this case in Apple procedures, that was causing damage to user's products.
I think sitting upon this information and refusing to report it would have been unethical, not the other way around. And I have little doubt it was legal. The fact Apple views the information as proprietary is neither here nor there.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Whether people who are NOT _their_ service providers have access to the manuals makes no difference to the quality of their service providers. What it benefits is the _competitiveness_ of their service providers vs those who are not apple authorized service providers.
In theory, they are illegally using one existing monopoly (the printing of apple service manuals) to gain an unfair advantage in another market (repair and other service on apple computers)
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Additionally, it is not unreasonable to assume that SomethingAwful were aware that such a disclaimer applied to the information that they had received.
Um. They didn't receive anything. One of the forum members linked to a picture on his own hosting. SomethingAwful doesn't have a copy of anything.
Then why the fuck do you act like one, fuckhead? Jeezus, umpty billion people in this thread have pointed out the concept of Fair Use (It's the same as you photocopying one page of a book at a uni library to use in a school assignment), and yet the Apple Fanbois, yes, including you, moron, continue to fucking bleat about how fair and innocent and morally fucking righteous Apple is.
Talk about sheer mindless stupidity.
I'm sorry, Sir, but that court opinion is protected by U.S. Copyright Law. It is the property of Westlaw and may not be copied into slashdot comments without prior permission. Please withdraw your remarks or face a cease and desist order.
What they have done is blasphemy and of course they should take it down and apologise. To insult Apple believers in this way is not acceptable, religious insults are not acceptable and only serve to fuel hatred.
Praise Jobs the Enlightener, the Finder,
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Is that a violation of intelectual property law, is there not an exception for portecting public safty?