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Apple Ordered to Pay Blogger Legal Fees
inetsee writes "Apple has been ordered to pay legal fees for two web sites that reported on an in-development Apple project code named 'Asteroid'. According to the article on WebProNews, Apple was ordered by a Santa Clara County court to pay almost $700,000 in
legal reimbursement to AppleInsider and PowerPage after the court agreed with the Electronic Frontier Foundation legal team that the web sites 'qualified as legitimate online news sites' engaging in trade journalism. Apple had claimed that it had a right to protect its trade secrets, but
the EFF successfully argued that 'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'"
Actualy these types of things have been around for ages with Apple. They are VERY trigger happy when it comes to protecting their secrets. The only big difference is that as they gain more market/mind share (and as the internet grows), the chance of some one managing to reveal Apple's secrets, and so we see more instances of Apple doing 'evil' things.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
There are five ways that stealing/revealing a trade secret can be considered a federal crime under US Code Title 18 Part 1, instead of merely a civil matter.
Trade Secret law is not based on NDAs. It is a distinct section of US intellectual property law.
That just plain isn't true, and I don't know what made people start thinking that all of a sudden.
Basically, this is a ruling that says you can brag about your crimes to a blogger, and they can publish your account, and they are free to cover up your crime.
Um, no. That's not what was decided. In fact, that aspect of the case was pretty much thrown out a long while ago. What was decided was actually in the article summary: 'Subpoenaing journalist sources is not an acceptable means of discovery.'
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Well, first off disclosure of trade secrets isn't a crime. It's a civil tort, specifically breach of a non-disclosure agreement. Of course the Web sites in question hadn't signed any NDA with Apple, so they couldn't have breached the (non-existent) agreement. Under the law the burden of keeping a trade secret secret rests on the company that owns it, not the general public.
The Uniform Trade Secrets Act, adopted by almost every state, including all of those relevant to this case, says otherwise.
In the early days, Apple used to put special identifiers in their own SCSI disk drives that they'd query, and their disk formatting software would only work with their own drives. I think people pretty quickly found ways to work around it, but it's the thought that counts in this context.
Please see the site exclusively devoted to Apple II clones. Virtually all of these (a couple hundred or so) were put out of business by Apple suing them.
Don't get me wrong: I think in most of these cases, Apple had a perfect right to sue. Many of these didn't even make an attempt at being legal or legitimate at all, just using outright copies of the Apple II ROMs and selling them. AFAIK, the only company that did legal Apple II clones was VTech, who did the (in retrospect) obvious thing: they went to Microsoft and took out a license to AppleSoft, just like Apple had in the first place. Other than that, most were just taking an Apple II, copying its ROM and putting it into a machine similar to a real Apple II. Apple successfully took nearly all of these (e.g. the Pineapple, most of the Franklins) off the market via lawsuits.
Apple also sued nearly everybody over supposedly copying their GUI -- in nearly every case, it was pretty obvious that the real source was Xerox, but Apple's motto seemed to be "it's our's; we stole it first." This forced changes (mostly minor) in GEM, and (IIRC) Tandy's GUI system (sorry, I don't remember its name).
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
And let us not forget that bastardized 25-pin "not nearly enough grounding" pseudo SCSI connector standard they championed. Meh.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
'' Well, first off disclosure of trade secrets isn't a crime. It's a civil tort, specifically breach of a non-disclosure agreement. ''
You are very confused here.
A trade secret is anything that a company keeps secret, and that is of commercial value to the company.
If a company told you a trade secret without an NDA, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore, and therefore no trade secret.
If a company tells you something under NDA that is not a trade secret, and you publish it, that is breach of a non-disclosure agreement.
If a company tells you a trade secret under NDA, then the fact that there is an NDA makes sure that it is still a trade secret, and if you publish it, that is _both_ breach of a non-disclosure agreement _and_ violation of a trade secret.
If you publish a company's trade secret that you found out illegally without being under an NDA, that is violation of a trade secret but _not_ breach of a non-disclosure agreement.
If you publish a company's trade secret that you found out legally (because they didn't keep it secret), then it wasn't a trade secret anymore and you are fine.
The only bit that you are right about is that a subpoena to a journalist must be the last resort for a company. Let me just say that we know that now, and that Apple knows that now, and that Apple's employees know that now, and Apple will handle the next leak differently. The next leak, Apple will find out, and his colleagues will hang the guilty one by the balls. The sequence will be: There is a leak. Apple asks anyone to testify under oath whether they are the leak. If there is no result, Apple will phone the judge what other steps they should take, just in case. If there is still no result, there will be a subpoena and it will be granted by the court.