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EFF Sues Apple Over BluWiki Legal Threats
Hugh Pickens writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against Apple to defend the First Amendment rights of BluWiki, a noncommercial, public Internet 'wiki' site operated by OdioWorks. Last year, BluWiki users began a discussion about making some Apple iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than Apple's iTunes. Apple lawyers demanded removal of the content (pdf) sending a letter to OdioWorks, alleging that the discussions constituted copyright infringement and a violation of the DMCA's prohibition on circumventing copy protection measures. Fearing legal action by Apple, OdioWorks took down the discussions from the BluWiki site but has now filed a lawsuit to vindicate its right to restore those discussions (pdf) and seeking a declaratory judgment that the discussions do not violate any of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, and do not infringe any copyrights owned by Apple. 'I take the free speech rights of BluWiki users seriously,' said Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks. 'Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions.'"
Random BedHead Ed adds ZDNet quotes EFF's Fred von Lohmann, who says that this is an issue of censorship. 'Wikis and other community sites are home to many vibrant discussions among hobbyists and tinkerers. It's legal to engage in reverse engineering in order to create a competing product, it's legal to talk about reverse engineering, and it's legal for a public wiki to host those discussions.'"
They keep doing very useful (and thankless) work.
-- Let's go Viridian.
This is a story regarding the countersuit to an Apple DMCA takedown notice. The EFF want publicity for this case.
The streisand effect would relate to apple's attempt to supress a few people talking about this on some forum and to shut the forum down, and now a lot more people are aware of the topic, the forum, and are talking about it.
Chickenshit?
Oh, you mean "Not willing to go to court with Apple and possibly lose his business in damages."
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
The Streissand effect IS there in full force.
This is all a result of Apple's initial lawsuit, to try and hide information about making iPods more interoperable. As a result of their trying to hide that information, it has become more visible.
How is that NOT the Streissand effect?
I highly doubt Apple is making that kind of Copyright claim. Most likely, they're attempting to claim copyright in any software or hardware code that was mentioned in these discussions. Considering the whole issue is about figuring out a way to reengineer the iPod and such to work with non-iTunes programs, they've most likely been having a discussion on the signals that the iPod sends to iTunes and to figure out a method of interpreting them.
That's what they mean by a copyright claim.
You accuse the EFF as having a "strong bias... to selectively use facts for propaganda." You provide a link. But that link does not support your accusation at all. Would you like to clarify? Thanks!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
That's what you get when you create laws that make information illegal. Censorship is nothing but just that: Outlawing certain information, or the spreading thereof.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yet, they did Sam, because you were too chickenshit to stand up to them. Now you want to stand behind a court decision before you muster up the "courage" to re-post the posts. If you are really concerned, re-post then go to court. Defend your users.
That's pretty big talk. You do realize that being sued, even if you win, you still lose because of the lawyer fees. Apple can afford to spend millions on their lawyers, can you afford millions on your lawyers? Do you think Sam can? What he did was smart. He backed off so they couldn't bury him into the ground in legal crap and then sued for the right to repost the data. His lawyer may be charging on a comission. If they win Sam and his lawyer will get paid, and the data will be restored. If he stood up to Apple at best he would have his information remain on the site, but he would still had spent a lot of money defending himself.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
"Seriously, there's no "Linux compatible" label on their products, so why the fuck would they buy it and THEN complain?"
There's no linux compatible sticker on anything much.
An iPod without the managing capacities of iTunes makes no sense.
Only if you're an idiot. Some of us can use these things called file systems to hold and manipulate files. They've been around a while, surprised you've never heard of them.
They should be buying a mass-storage MP3 player which requires no special software.
Like an iPod? They don't require special software, Apple just deliberately make it difficult to use with other software.
In conclusion, fuck off retard.
Learn to comprehend what's going on. They're not saying it's Apple's fault for not making the iPod compatible, they're saying Apple can't attempt to stop them from doing that work themselves.
It's entirely reasonable for Apple to say "We're not going to support that", but when they say "We're not going to support that and we'll sue you if you try to make it work", we have a fucking problem.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
And what I'm getting at is that unless you are hosting such a site and have refused to obey a cease and desist letter from Apple, inviting them to sue you, you can STFU about his level of courage and your opinion of how he should have shot himself in the foot just to spite Apple.
He is fighting back, in a far more intelligent manner than what you proposed. If he, and you, are right that Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on, then the only harm done is that the project was delayed.
If, however, you both are wrong about Apple's legal strategy and this isn't the making of another SCO level FUD battle, in other words if the judge actually buys Apples arguement, then his method at least protects him and his users from further harm in the matter. Your method simply leaves him bankrupt.
Argue the merits of the case, argue the merits of Apple's business strategy. But unless you've already put your own balls on the fire here, keep your trollish opines on Sam's to yourself.
And you've just outlined the entire MPAA/RIAA prosecution strategy to boot...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Of course it's a civil rights issue.
If I buy a product, I should get to use it any way that I like that is not a genuine patent or copyright infringement.
IOW: If Apple can't proceed here without using/abusing the DMCA then they really shouldn't have any standing.
Reverse engineering and discussing reverse engineering should be speech protected not
just as a civil right but protected as being consistent with the copyright clause of
the US Constitution.
Copyright is meant as a means to SPREAD INFORMATION.
Too many people tend to forget that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The courts have an easy way out of this one. They'll declare there's no "case or controversy" and dismiss the complaint, just like they did when the RIAA threatned Dr. Felten over releasing watermarking information.
The only way to get heard in court when someone sends you a C&D is to fail to desist, and let them sue you. Of course, given the other side has far more resources, that's kind of like taking up Dirty Harry on his "Do you feel lucky, punk?" challenge.
Well, there are many perspectives on this. Yours advocates what I've always called "pragmatic", which boils down to (using your words) "path of least resistance" while accomplishing the desired affect. In many arenas, I'm like that too.
Others want the iPod (why? I dunno. It's spiffy and has neato features, and don't underestimate the power of "cool" and technofetishism.) But they don't want to be locked into iTunes. So, they find ways to overcome Apple's artificial monopoly-enforcement tool. I admire the tenacity, and wish them the best.
Me? I don't buy Apple stuff, not merely to avoid their lock-in traps, but as an actual statement. They get no money from me as long as they continue to use the courts and their own internal censorship systems (thread suppression on Apple fora) as their way of enforcing their vision of the world on their customers. Respect first sale and the customer's inherent right of use, and we can do business, Apple.
But that's just me.
Besides, I'm so old and crusty that I don't even bother with those new-fangled digital audio doohickeys. Now get offa my lawn!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
"If you quickly scrolled through the comments..."
You honestly expect me to waste my time searching for evidence to support an accusation made by an anonymous coward? Seriously?
The EFF is an advocacy group pushing an agenda. I have no doubt that the group manipulates facts to further its agenda. This is not based on any actions of the EFF, but is based on advocacy groups in general.
However, before I make a specific accusation about the EFF I'd want my facts straight. Giving a link to posting which does not back up my accusation is not good enough. And expecting people to go through 1079 comments to find my evidence is ludicrous.
Here's how you do it. Take the EFF press release, take the "real facts" behind the story, and show how the EFF twisted the facts. It would not be hard to do.
Of course you'll argue that I could do it. But it's not my accusation. So why would I do it?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Nobody's violating your civil rights by offering you a product that requires special software.
That depends.
they're not violating your rights by not providing it for your platform of choice, or where it genuinely requires special software.
They ARE violating your civil rights by stopping you even talking about creating other software.
This is not "OMFG! Apple don't support linux! OMFG!", it's "A corporate behemoth is shutting down forums that talk about making other ways to interface with products we have legally bought"
Not all of those limitations are purely technical - a good many of them are commercial.
And most of the commercial ones are not or should not be legal with a device I bought. You don't get to tell me how to use the chair I bought from you, apple don't get the right to tell me how to use the iPod. They don't have to support it, but they have no right to stop me taking it apart, talking to it with other software or shoving it up my arse if that's what I want to do.
Of course it's hard not to laugh- it's funny how open WM phones are compared to the the likes of the iPhone or even the Android-powered G1, both of which require jailbreaking to run any app of your choosing.
Sigs are for losers
Oh, I hate Apple too due to their legal threats and libellous advertising. It just so happens I had a rational argument against them this time, plus they're not the only offenders when it comes to proprietary lock-in. I'm also happy to see the EFF probing the DMCA from every angle to find the loopholes or dissolve it outright. However, like my subject says, if you buy a tool because of what it might be some day then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Apple - Think Different (and we'll sue you)
Why is it so hard for some people to believe that Apple isn't this wonderful non-profit business with only intentions of making the world better? They are a for profit business, like the rest of them, with profit as the bottom line. They sell products to make money. That is all. Some people like their products better than others. But don't equate the products they sell with how they run their corporation.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Congress enacted the law which Apple claims as the grounds for its action.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
What I don't get is how the RDF has been so successful at making folks think Apple is better than MSFT, when it comes to freedom. I'm probably going get flamed for this, but what the hell, let us be honest here. Apple LOVES DRM, just like MSFT, Apple LOVES vendor lock in, just like MSFT. If they switched positions tomorrow Apple would be just as nasty when it comes to anti competitive practices as MSFT ever was when Darth Gates was running it(Damn I miss him. The monkey is like a bad Dilbert joke) and any attempt by anybody to go around their locks, even as we saw here to allow interoperability, will get their lawyers falling out of the sky on them.
So I honestly don't get it. The way you hear Apple fanboys talking you'd think Jobs is sitting in some office with his bare feet up tinkering these new toys by hand, when in reality Apple is nothing but a "Mini MSFT" that doesn't have a bumbling marketing monkey screwing with the line. But of course when Steve retires, well I'm sure they'll get their very own Ballmer. if they like Apple because they are shiny, or they think the brushed metal is cool,fine. But please quit trying to make it sound like Apple is this nice hippie company in California. They haven't been that since the Woz quit decades ago. They are just MSFT on a smaller scale, that's all.
They are just lucky that they still have Darth Jobs to wield the dark side of the force for them. All we MSFT users have is a really fat stormtrooper that couldn't hit the broad side of popular with a blaster rifle.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
sooo much more open?
If you're going to boycott every company that pulls this kind of crap, get ready to grow your own food and cultivate your own penicillin too. Monsanto and the drug companies make Apple look like total hippies.
After high school, you'll find out that they ALL play dirty. It won't change unless we reform our "IP" laws.
Yes, MSFT "owns" the OS, but the BIG difference is they don't "own" the hardware. And frankly I think it is debatable which is more evil. I remember what is was like before, where your Vic wouldn't talk to your TRS 80 which wouldn't talk to your IBM, etc. But frankly ANYBODY can write a Windows driver. I have seen more weird shit come out in the last 15 years or so, all because it was butt simple to write a Windows driver for any weird ass piece of hardware you could dream up. I mean you can even put a fricking cassette deck in your PC!
The point is before MSFT sold MS-DOS to Compaq, the entire PC world was "welcome to proprietary land" where nothing worked with anybody else and it was all crazy expensive. And now that the PC ecosystem has matured Linux(and BSD, and Haiku,etc) can take advantage of that to give us even more choice. Do most PCs come with Windows? Yep, because that is what folks want. They WANT to play their games, or have that nice shiny disc they got at the Wally World work, or have their printer/scanner/fax without praying to the Gods of CLI. If Apple would have won we would probably still have $3000+ machines that only those with serious cash could afford. Now I can slap together a machine with frankly insane power for less than $400. To me that is progress.
So as much as I HATE what that marketing ass monkey Ballmer is trying to push in 400 fricking versions, I still give credit where credit was due. If it wasn't for Darth Gates making it so it didn't matter whether I bought Dell, or HP, or Packard Bell(remember those), or Gateway,etc that everything worked as long as it had the Windows symbol on it things would be VERY different. Because I remember what it was like before MSFT, and frankly it really, REALLY sucked. If you think Apple makes great PCs, fine. I agree completely. Ferrari makes damned nice roadsters too, I can't afford those either.
But at least now I have choice. I can run WinXP(my choice) or Vista, I can run Linux, or BSD, or thanks to the wonders of the Internet I can even run a hacked version of OSX on generic hardware if I wanted to. But we probably wouldn't have that choice if Darth Gates hadn't screwed over IBM all those years ago. And looking at their actions I would have to say that Darth Jobs is JUST as nasty as Darth Gates, he just has less money but MUCH better taste.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.