Slashdot Mirror
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)
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.
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!"
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.