Apple Ends Anti-Blogger Legal Effort

An anonymous reader writes "Apple has decided not to appeal the decision against it in it in its case against the product-information leaking bloggers. News.com discusses the ramifications of this decision, which may make future online journalists bolder in their actions." From the article: "Court documents show the company's investigators interviewed 29 employees who had access to a key confidential document — but Apple did not examine them under oath or examine their computers. That's one reason, the appeals court said, to grant the online journalists the protective order they requested. 'Apple has failed to establish that it adequately pursued other possible means to identify the source of the information in question,' the judges said."

Comments

No brainer...

[alshithead]

Apple had internal investigations they could perform to at least try to find the information they wanted before filing a suit. The court correctly (in my opinion) ruled that Apple needs to pursue those avenues before granting their request.

Precedent?

[bcat24]

From TFA:

The three-judge panel rejected Apple's arguments that the independent reporters were not true journalists. "We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalism,'" the court said, ruling that California's journalist shield law would protect the Web reporters.

Any lawyers out here? Will this decision set a precedent for future cases like this, or is it only applicable to this specific case?

Re:Precedent?

[TopShelf]

That wording may prevent it from becoming a precedent. It sounds like the panel didn't want to get into that issue, rather than make a firm declaration that bloggers should be treated as professional journalists. IANAL, but I would guess that it would take an appeal by Apple on that specific point to get them to probe that question further, and it sounds like Apple's not going down that road.

Re:Precedent?

[Durandal64]

IANAL, but here's what I read from it. Basically, they said that Apple didn't have grounds for forcing Think Secret to turn over information about their source because Apple themselves didn't do everything they could internally to ascertain the source of the leak. In other words, the court ruled very conservatively in favor of freedom of the press in saying that Apple had to exhaust all other avenues of inquiry before they could even think about asking for a court order which might be construed as infringing on press freedoms. They didn't actually say that bloggers are entitled to the same protections as newspapers, TV shows, etc ... but they didn't say they weren't either. A creative lawyer could easily interpret the decision as precedent establishing bloggers as members of the press. Basically, the court ruled in the same way they would have ruled if Apple was suing the New York Times which grants weight to the idea that bloggers are in fact journalists.

As for hard precedent, this ruling says that you can't just go after bloggers for their sources as a first resort just because they're not traditional media outlets. You have to show that you've turned up dry on every other reasonable avenue of investigation. It establishes that bloggers have at least one of the same protections that other media do.

Re:Precedent?

[Todd Knarr]

If I remember the text of the ruling correctly, the judge didn't completely refuse to visit the question. He said that he wasn't going to visit the question of whether they were journalists or not because he didn't have to. In this case they were acting as journalists, which was sufficient for the purposes of determining whether the shield law applied in this case regardless of whether or not they were journalists in a broader sense. This is actually a better ruling than merely saying bloggers are journalists. If taken as precedent it basically says that anyone is protected as a journalist when they're acting as a journalist, whether they're a full-time journalist or not.

Re:Precedent?

[Todd Knarr]

Nowhere in the decision does it say that. In fact, the judge spends some time on the fact that the shield does not apply when the journalists are themselves the targets of the legal action, as they would be if they were invading your privacy directly. In this case Apple was not targetting the bloggers themselves since, legally, Apple wouldn't have had a leg to stand on if they had (the bloggers never signed any NDAs with Apple, hence generally weren't obligated to protect Apple's secrets (the exception would've been hard for Apple to prove)). You've the same protections now that you had before this decision.

Re:Headline correction.

[Moqui]

The original headline is correct. Apple ceased it's appeal strategy in the case by their own volition. The previous Slashdot article that referenced the original court case decision would have had the headline Apple Loses Anti-Blogger Effort.

Apple already lost, and was down the same path when their lawyers realized there was no way to turn the appeal. All your post came off as is a whiny anti-Apple poster looking for ways to taunt the same fanboys you mention.

Definition of journalist?

[growse]

Interesting. If we have laws in countries which protect specific groups of people (for example, "journalists"), we should probably define better what a "journalist" is. Wikipedia reckons it's

journalist simply meant someone who wrote for journals ... In the past century it has come to mean a writer for newspapers and magazines as well ... Regardless of medium, the term journalist carries a connotation or expectation of professionalism in reporting, with consideration for truth, fairness, balance, decency and ethics.

That said, dictionary.com says that a journalist is:

1. One whose occupation is journalism.
2. One who keeps a journal.

Wonderfully insightful there. in any case, it seems that the definition is vague enough to say that a journalist is "anyone who frequently writes and publishes current affairs information", which neatly covers newspapers, magazines and bloggers (despite the fact that their "consideration for truth, fairness, balance, decency and ethics" is sometimes highly questionable). This should be enough to put an end to the "lets sue people with no money and aren't corporations" madness that apple seem to have been infected with.

Re:Apple is a digital rights management company.

[four2five]

When Woz ran the company.....did someone mistake their dad's copy of Pirates of Silicon Valley for Coeds Gone Wild and pick up a name?
Tell me when Woz ran the company, as in made the business the decisions....ever...
Job's is a business man and while he has a penchant for design and tech he's always been a business man first.

Remember the situation in which this started

[stefanb]

I think what people are forgetting here is when Apple started this drastic course against the rumor sites: just weeks before the announcement they would be switching to Intel processors.

In hindsight, it's clear to me that they wanted to send a strong signal to all potential leaks that they would be found out--"just look at what happened to the people who were talking about some random Firewire audio interface"--and for the most part, they've succeeded. Remember that Apple must have been in serious negotiations and preparations with Intel for at least half a year, if not longer, and keeping this secret from both Motorola and IBM was most certainly really important to the entire process.

Re:Remember the situation in which this started

[mike_the_kid]

If there was a +6 insightful, you'd get it. It makes a lot of sense.

However, the case was filed on December 13, 2004. The switch to Intel was announced in June 2005.

So, it was a couple of months, not a couple of weeks between their filing suit and the big switch announcement.

Also, its worth noting that it must have worked, because everyone was in the dark about Apple's intentions.

Apple Likely Knew/Knows Who Spilled The Beans

[cannuck]

"Spilled The Beans"

Origin:

"When votes were taken in Greece, white beans indicated positive votes and black beans negative. Votes had to be unanimous, so if the collector 'spilled the beans' before the vote was complete and a black bean was seen, the vote was halted".

It's very likely Apple knew/knows who spilled the beans - Jobs isn't stupid. So did Jobs/Apple then set out to find out the truth or was it all about to intimidating jounalists (you know - people who write stuff for public consumption).

Well .... you would have to believe that Jobs/Apple didn't know what a journalist is - doesn't understand where and how journalists work. Humbug! Apple not only sends out media releases to hundreds (thousands?) of journalists on a monthly (weekly?) basis - it likely leaks info to the chosen few "biggy" journalists. Is Payolla involved... well ... only to be a fly on the wall.

If it looks like a SLAP, if it smells like a SLAP, if it sounds like a SLAP, if it walks like a SLAP, well then.....