Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple Ordered to Pay Blogger Legal Fees

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bruising-the-bottom-line dept.

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.'"

5 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Worried about Apple... by popo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does it seem like every day, Apple is seeming less like the good guy?

    This isn't flamebait... (I love my Mac) its an observation that IMHO
    over the past year Apple seems to have been far more agressive at implementing
    "control" measures through legal means -- not as bad as MSFT, but a far cry f
    rom the "We want everyone to love us" attitude of the past.

    My question is: what changed? And is this the Apple of the future? Or
    is this a result of some shift in management attitudes. (Or a case of
    money and power corrupt, no matter who you are?)

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:Worried about Apple... by Thansal · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.
    2. Re:Worried about Apple... by oohshiny · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Does it seem like every day, Apple is seeming less like the good guy

      Apple makes nice products, but the notion that they are "the good guy" is a fiction created by their marketing.

      For example, in the 80's, they legally threatened many people over GUIs and they deliberately broke standards like SCSI. They have done more for establishing DRM than Microsoft. They keep ripping off ideas from other companies and open source, and they don't give a damn about stepping on other people's trademarks or open source project names.

      Overall, Apple's record is decidedly mixed.

      My question is: what changed?

      Only your perception, really.

      If anything, Apple has actually become significantly nicer over the last couple of decades, and their products have improved as well.

  2. Re:The fees... by sokoban · · Score: 5, Funny

    700k...

    Isn't that what an iPhone is going for these days? Seriously, $640k should be enough for anybody.
    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
  3. Re:Hallelujah! by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    And there's a couple of things. First is the fact that Apple couldn't show that the Web sites in question knew their source was breaching an NDA. Second is the rule that says you can only subpoena a journalist in the way Apple wanted to if all other avenues of investigation have been exhausted. As the judge observed, Apple could have questioned it's own employees about whether they'd disclosed the information and to whom, and done so under penalty of perjury to add weight to the questioning. This could've revealed the names Apple was looking for without requiring anything from the Web sites. Apple choose not to pursue internal questioning, and the judge ruled that their mere desire not to demoralize their employees wasn't enough to justify putting the burden on someone else.