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Apple Lawyering Up On "Fake Steve Jobs"
An anonymous reader sends us to The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs for a developing situation. Daniel Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs, made a post earlier today revealing that Apple was offering him some money (in the wake of the ThinkSecret shutdown) to close down his blog. He said he was interested in taking it. A few hours later, Lyons posted again revealing that Apple's lawyers had contacted him angrily, saying the details of the deal were supposed to remain private. Fake Steve replied 'we either deal out in the open, completely transparently, or we don't deal.' A third post gives details of Apple's lawyers' next response, going totally medieval on him. Since then the situation has calmed down a bit.
I don't get why Apple bothers with this. If they bribe this guy to shut down, they have to bribe the next guy who startsup a blog about apple secrets, and the next guy, and the next guy. Do they think these people have super powers and once they're gone, their secrets are safe?
It could just be a satirical fiction based around the ThinkSecret situation.
I'm just glad that Apple isn't a big secretive powerful corporation that threatens to sue small people, pushes DRM, or anything evil like that.
I'm sure someone is going to mod me for flamebait, but I never understand the people who insist Apple is the greatest company of the fan of the planet when there is plenty of proof that Apple is a corporation (for better or worse) on par with most corporations.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I'm always confused by Apple on matters like this; a lot of these people are key in building & maintaining hype in Apple products. If Apple (apple legal?) had their way, it seems like there'd be... well... Apple.com and a few keynotes every year as the only way people would learn details of (and think of?) new products.
I'm a big Apple fan & I love their approach of using/contributing to open source software where it makes sense to improve their products - but their marketing and PR people seem at odds with their engineering attitude (especially with their solution-oriented attitude recently with iPhone, Apple TV compared to their key skill as a superb platform (NB. this point was blatantly stolen from Wil Shipley's blog)). I know PR people think about things completely differently from engineers but you'd think that was a company attitude, not just with the people making the magic
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
From the article: ...he feels it is his duty to inform me that Apple's lawyers have identified at least three posts in my archive that they "deem to be actionable."
Since when was parody actionable?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Seriously, read some of his ramblings about the SCOX saga. He's a paid shill.
This would be the same Dan Lyons that faked a take-down note from Apple in order to stop writing Fake Steve Jobs before his management found out about it. He didn't want his management to know because technically he was violating his contract with Forbes, but fortunately for him they didn't mind.
Not exactly a paragon of virtue himself... and not above conducting business in public when it suits him, and in private when he can get away with it.
This guy also thought SCO was a sure winner and wasn't very polite about the Linux community.
The younger geeks don't remember why Apple lost out the 1st time around. They're the King of Control. The champion of "our way or the highway". The locked it down when no one else did, and their prices were insane.
As I've been accused of being a MS tool in the past, I will always maintain they are the lesser of three evils when compared to the other contenders that could have won out. Apple and IBM.
So while it's currently "cool" to think of Apple as the hippy-happy company. Realize they are anything but. Job's paints a pretty picture. Just realize he's going to tell you which room and which wall to hang it on. Or he won't let you buy it.
So, yes this being a parody does factor into it, but mainly because Mac users expect that Apple will respect the creativity of its user base and the whole industry around it.
C'mon people, think! It's the FAKE Steve Jobs blog. Did it occur to you that the stories there might be FAKE? This is satire, and you're all fools.
Do you really believe that? Parts of this hoax were believable, but the EFF part was obviously a joke.
Apple legal is just a mini implementation of the Microsoft version. 99% chance of having no clue what they're talking about, but a 100% chance of making jackasses out of themselves in the process of pursuing their so-called goals.
People really started hating MS when they started this same stuff so Apple shouldn't for a second think they're somehow immune to that same wide-spread hate. I use apple products because I like them, but I'm not going to kid myself and think they're somehow "thinking different" in any aspect but product-design.
But then buying Apple products is the same except it starts with a new house and works it's way back to the dress, car, and kitchen appliances which can only come from the same company that built the house.
I am constantly amazed with the people who flock to Apple when they do the same thing at the hardware level that Microsoft does at the software level and that is product line lock in.
The major reason Apple lost the numbers war to Microsoft is that Windows and it's related products were allowed to run on any IBM PC clone while Jobs wanted to control every aspect of the Apple and sued out of existence the very people who were trying to clone an Apple and extend the user base of Apple and Apple-like products. Microsoft doesn't really care about pirated software in third world countries as long as the computers are running Microsoft products. They have a foot hold on future sales when the dust clears from law suits and the users are socialized into thinking that Microsoft is the only product they can use. As long as it's not Linux/x386BSD/Apple they are willing to tolerate pirating because it extends the base of users of MS technologies.
While Apple may make a better product overall (remember Mac OS is FreeBSD under the covers) they will always be only a niche market because Jobs is a worse control freak than Gates. --
Too lazy to create a sig...
(1) Even Apple's lawyers don't just whip out kid's college fund numbers.
(2) The EFF would never say that.
(3) If Lyons has a contract to continue the blog, then his employer would most certainly be fielding the lawyers, because if anything were actionable, they'd be liable too. (duh) So his "I've already paid a ton for a lawyer" was another giveaway.
What's hilarious is that Real Steve Jobs (or at least someone acting on his behalf) took the time to reply to a few angry readers who emailed him.
Nice posts though. FSJ rocks.
So if I started a Fake Bill Gates blog and made up crap like this about Microsoft lawyers, would you boycott Microsoft? If I started Fake Linus Torvalds and pretended to make kernel devs look like assholes, would you boycott Linux?
Actually, scratch that. Linux kernel devs *do* look like assholes.
I do think it's kind of cool that one unsubstantiated blog rumor can make it to the front page of slashdot, and then get people to swear off buying products from a company. I hope that the small company I'm working at will someday be as loved/hated as that!
I think Fake Steve Jobs has stepped over the line from hilarious satire to nasty slander. Libel? Whichever.
If it's a joke, which it appears to be, I think Apple would be completely justified in going after him.
I don't know that Apple lost because they "locked it down". If Apple's intent was to control all the world's computers and have to service any small company with a device and a driver of questionable stability, then, sure, they lost. But look at the two companies today . . . one is huge, incredibly rich and unwieldy with a product that people universally hate while the other is the darling of intelligent and thoughtful people everywhere. You ask, "if all these people love Apple why ain't they richer?" Simple. The majority of people in the world are not thoughtful and tasteful. McDonald's, Walmart, Dell. Case closed. Keep in mind, Jobs is a multi-billionaire . . . that's billion with a "b". Ya know, a thousand times a million? And he was pretty darned rich and beloved long before he ever sold a single Mac, so if he's crying about Gates' billions then he's a lot more shallow than I gave him credit for. I think, other than getting run out of Apple by Scully & Co, he's had a pretty good run and even getting canned turned about to be good, Pixar made him richer than Apple did, didn't it and in his spare time he created the future of the Apple OS in NeXT. What do you do in your spare time? Yes, Apple is a corporation. Anyone who thought they were a commune singing kumbaya over their circuitboards is an idiot. They're in business to make money and they do. They're something like 2nd or third most profitable company in the last decade in the US and maybe the world. Yes they're A-holes with the lawyers sometimes, but who in the corporate world isn't? It comes with the territory. And Apple's business model is based in part on its secretive nature. So while I don't like it, it's not like it affects how my iPhone docks so beautifullly with my Mac. When Jobs sells me a product I am smart enough to know what I'm getting and what I'm not getting. When GE sells me a fridge I know that changing the condenser or the coils will void the warranty. Same thing with Apple products. If I want to hack and tinker, I'll buy a PC. Not only are they more tinkerable, but tinkering is often required to get the gd things to work properly. I like appliances, they do what I expect them to do and they don't require rebooting - much. I'd be very happy if Macs booted instantly, never crashed and did everything that Apple said they would do, but then Macs are a lot closer to that ideal that Windows is and that's a quality I love. so, sue me . . . . JoeL
Parody is a right that comes with responsibility like any other. When you step out of character on your parody blog and say you're being sued, and give nasty details, if you're lying that's not parody anymore, it's just lying.
Shame on the lot of you. This is supposed to be a smart crowd here. Don't let your bias get to the point where you just look foolish. It's xmas, it's the weekend, but Apple lawyers are firing off quick replies that are increasingly brutal despite their previous emails all going directly public via FSJ? Come on, nerds, use your brains.
Even so, I see no reason to sympathise this guy in any way.. why should we even bother? I hope he spends a lot of money for legal fees.
It appears, from various comments above, that this is a joke by Daniel Lyons, in very poor taste. Given how widely Slashdot is read, I think there should be a prominent clarification in the headline and story, IMMEDIATELY, that the story is dubious.
Apple does enough things that genuinely warrant criticism. Inventing a story like this, and publicising it as fact, is unconscionable.
You know how all those douchebags that like to say, "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide?"
This is a perfect example of just how wrong-headed that approach is to privacy. None of the information that the lawyer dug up on Lyons is embarrassing or evidence of illegal activities. But the implied threat that a MegaCorp of essentially unlimited resources knows where you live and who is dear to you and wants you to know that they know is enough to convince many people to just give the MegaCorp whatever they want and be done with it.
That's bad on an individual level when it happens to regular joes. It's 1000x worse for society when it happens to people like journalists, whistle-blowers and politicians.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
...and it's not even April.
Not only has he baited those of us who read the FSJ blog, but he has also baited every Microsoft fanboy and Apple fanboy who read his blog, who don't read his blog, and now Slashdot.
If the Internet ever gave out trophies, this guy deserves at least 5. Maybe 6.
Acting under the assumption that this is indeed a hoax:
I believe Fake SJ was attempting to point out how incredibly believable this scenario has become, due to Apple's declining public image. Five years ago, if someone had pulled a stunt like this, no one would have believed it. Today, people were emailing Real SJ, without any doubt that Apple would sue a satire. The absurd has become reality.
The corner of a round room
I still can't believe how many people believe this is real.
I agree. Whenever any Apple-using friends of mine trot out the line that "Apple is a better company than Microsoft", I just point out stuff like this. And they'll reply: "You fell for that and call us stupid?"
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Humans are simple creatures, we need the world defined in goodies and baddies, that often means having to make the choice of the lesser of two evils, and not always getting it right.
Godwin time perhaps, in WW2 who are the goodies and who are the baddies? You have the axis and the allies. Well Japan and Germany clearly belong in the baddies groups, these are evil nations whose people have not a single redeeming quality. The role of Italy and and Austria is slightly more complex. Italy often seems to be able to shrug of the worsed of the holocaust.
But the goodies? The US of A? Hitler went to the east for lebensraum, the americans trekked to the west and killed the people already living there. What is the difference between a sign that says "Geine Juden" and "No Blacks"?
England? Talk about a country bend on taking over the world, it made an empire out of astraucities. The soviet union/russia? Well at least Stalin could never be called a racist, he had entire populations wiped out of all sorts. Equality of a kind I suppose.
Yet we must pick and in popular culture that often means we gloss over the "truth" to present one side in a better light. You might have noticed that in the recent WW2 tv series Band of Brothers absolutly no mentions is made of the US army policies regarding blacks or those with ancestors from Japan?
Part of the final solution was to deport jews to remote areas where they could be controlled/wiped out. Explain to me the motivations between Indian reservations and the rather diminsied population figures of native americans?
In WW2 there were only baddies, just that some at that particulair time were not as active as others and depending on your own background some weren't intrested in being very bad to you at that moment. Why string up a jew when blacks are so much more fun?
Yet we need to have a hero, and so we make one, by putting on blinders.
Steve Jobs is a figure in IT, there are many others, but he can be very closely linked to Bill Gates, an obvious baddy (although once seen as a hero freeing us from the evil IBM, a company that is now often seen as a goodie).
What really is the difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates apart from income? It is a well known part of computer history that it was Steve Jobs own (what is the word, incompetence, arrogance) that handed Bill Gates the PC market. Apple, IBM, Commodore, Atari etc etc all screwed up at a crucial point leaving Wintel to rule the market. A lot has been written about it already, including on slashdot.
But just imagine that Steve Jobs hadn't made what ever mistake it was he made and that Apple had come to rule the PC market, what then? Would it have been any better? Imagine that the holocaust had never happened, would the US be the evil country for its treatment of blacks, would it have continued like South Africa? How much did the realization of the holocaust change american opinion on its own treatment of a part of the population?
Apple has never been any more open with its software then Microsoft has. While MS software has always been bug prone, I have to say that the most crashy PC I have ever seen was running OS9. Supporting DRM, are we talking about Steve "Disney" Jobs here? Sony is often a villain when it comes to consumer rights, but when did Apple ever fight a legal battle FOR fair use?
But we need a hero, and so we make one, reality be damned. The sad part is that we got real heroes in IT, Stallman in front, but that person is WAY to much of a hero. People often insultingly try to compare him to Jezus but I personally see that as a rather important clue as to real heroes who truly stand for something. The person of jezus, if he was real, was a real pain in the ass for the powers that be, even his own followers. Really read the bible and you find a guy who was kicking against a lot of pedastals and upsetting people. Very confenient he was killed and that the pleps couldn't read and that the powers that be could tell their people what Jezus had RE
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Too bad this whole thing is fake and you're blowing the Orwell hysteria whistle into the wind. But yes, "MegaCorp" (or, Apple) can do whatever they want with their "essentially unlimited resources." 1000x worse, just like you said. You're one sharp tack, sir.
It's just Dan Lyin' Lyons. I doubt Apple cares one way or the other.
But it sure gets danny a lot of free publicity. Danny is a pure fiction writer. Danny is laughing up his sleeve right now, because of the slashdotters he fooled.
I agree, and further more I wish /. would develop some policy of printing retractions to stories that turn out to be bogus. I plan on tuning back in tomorrow to see how things develop but I don't want to have to sift through all the esoteric and inaccurate discussions that arise for any given story, interesting as they may be, to find out "truth".
Here's my suggestion for if a article ends up being fabricated: Post a retraction at the top of the article, or even remove the original article and create a new entry/article about how you discovered the original one was a fake.
Could Slashdot please change the inflammatory title of the post to reflect that it's actually a hoax?