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UK Court Sanctions Apple For Non-Compliance
drinkypoo writes "We've been following the story that Apple was ordered by a UK court to post an apology to Samsung both in newspapers and on Apple's UK website. After originally posting a non-apology and then hiding a real one, Apple finally complied. Now, PJ over at Groklaw reports on the ruling from the UK court itself, which condemns Apple's conduct in this matter. 'Since Apple did not comply with the order in its estimation, adding materials that were not ordered and in addition were "false," the judges ordered Apple to pay Samsung's lawyers' fees on an indemnity basis, and they add some public humiliation.' The judge wrote, 'Finally I should mention the time for compliance. Mr Beloff, on instructions (presumably given with the authority of Apple) told us that "for technical reasons" Apple needed fourteen days to comply. I found that very disturbing: that it was beyond the technical abilities of Apple to make the minor changes required to own website in less time beggared belief. ... I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple.'"
Cue the apple fanbois and their out of control apologetics.
This story just wouldnt be complete without their sqealing.
On a more serious note, I agree with the judge. This kind of change could have been implemented in less than one day. Apple probably just wanted more time to try to wrangle some legal way out of putting the directed message on their website in the manner proscribed.
You know what they say-- Tell a lie enough times, and you will begin to believe it yourself. That's the danger of using an RDF.
theyre getting owned by samsung.
they are fucked anyway... already samsung is outselling them and they are about to release the galaxy note2 which is even better than the s3 with over double the performance
http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxynote/note2/index.html?type=find
Should force Apple to remove it's homepage with one the Judge himself sees fit. I imagine scaled fonts up to size 340 that tell everyone: HI WE ARE BASTARDS AND LIED AND LOST ABOUT IT IN COURT. SAMSUNG PRODUCTS ACTUALLY ARE MORE VALUE FOR THE MONEY. Something like that. Just to make an example that you don't fuck with a court-ruling. Because what Apple did and still is doing (scrolling to see the court-ruling) is pissing on our all. Our laws, fairness, and rights. Apple is pissing on them and no-one in their right mind should accept that. Especially not a judge. Now fanbois, go ahead. Mod me down, but you know it won't make the truth go away.
not too be in more serious trouble for contempt of court
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
I admit I am ignorant in this case beyond the headlines. Did the judge order the exact wording of the apology? Did the judge order the exact location on a web site that the apology must appear? Did the judge order the exact page of newspapers the apology must appear? Also, we're the quotes attributed to the judge not accurate?
Conservative, mod down for violating
To be fair to apple, they couldn't make changes to their website for 14 days because they were busy making changes to show their new mini, and make people think the slow, relatively expensive, poor display device which is easily scratched, was a good deal. They had more pressing problems.
When companies get big, they become a type of clique. Since so many people have to be on-board for any one thing to get done, the company controls them with a kind of dogma or culture.
This reinforces an us-them mentality even where it doesn't need to exist.
As a result, the companies get arrogant not so much from their CEOs, but from the rank and file. That then spreads upward. They have become victims of their own propaganda.
This is why these "too big to fail" companies tend to blow out on obvious issues like this. Did they really just defy a sitting court? How stupid do you have to be to do that?
Their lawyers must be apoplectic. Or just carefully filling out their bills.
Futurist Traditionalism
You didn't read the whole article, did you? Apple's response was "lackadaisical" because they were ordered to put the notice in each newspaper as early as possible, but they dragged their heels for weeks before doing it.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Anything you say may be taken down in evidence and used in a court of law against you.
Isn't that the old style warning you got when talking to the police.
Not "Talk any old shite on top of what you need to say".
Seriously, what is this shit lately ?
The iPad Mini intros with substandard processor and screen res ?
The use of patents to defend what will soon be obsolete anyway ?
Apple is heading for a cliff. It looks like Steve Jobs didn't choose
his successor wisely.
Apple has always treated the world, including its own customers, from a superiority position. Apple is all knowing. Apple doesn't follow standards or rules. Apple always knows best and can do no wrong.
So why did anyone expect for Apple to behave differently this time? Arogance is a core value of their corporate culture and its only got stronger since their cash flow surged.
I will be enormously happy when this tumor of a company will die off.
Oh crap.. this decision is cutting edge and it was brilliant. This ought to be a new template. The standard in the corporate world these days is to NEVER admit they are wrong and act as arrogant as possible. This is one of the few ways this can that can actually make it on the public record that the corporations actually broke the law and that consumers ought to know about it.
I didn't write my submission nearly so elegantly, nor with proper inline links. Now that is what I call editing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Skabiddiddowza!
Well, they lost that one in the UK and the US (funny detail, but then the jury has gone so fast through the verdict that they had less than 5 minutes on average for each question, and that does include the time that they should have spent reading the explanations, guess a "quality verdict"), even the US jury found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 does not infringe on the iPad design.
As a verb, as used in this headline, "sanction" means approve of. So the headline here doesn't match up with the contents of the post.
The headline, if it must use the word "sanction", should be "UK court levies sanctions against Apple..."
Apple was doing this stuff under Jobs as well. It's got nothing to do with Cook.
It's a reaction from a company who make expensive gadgets to a threat which was always going to come, namely that innovation on smartphones has reached a plateau allowing mass market device manufacturers to undercut them with functionally equivalent devices.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Well, I don't know about having no authority, but it is rather silly that the court did not anticipate Apple behaving this way. Apple obviously knew what they originally put up on their website was not going to be approved.. you can tell because they put a much more muted statement on the print ads that came out at the same time. There's no cost to them to change their website.
So if Apple is doing this on purpose, what's the message they think they're sending?
More information on what you said: apparently the notices will be in the newspapers on November 16th. The court was a little surprised that, given that the order was made on October 18th, it took that long to get an advert into the newspapers.
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
It's entirely possible that different people/teams were in charge of updating the website and publishing the newspapers. Plus, newspapers generally charge more if the ad is bigger so keeping it to a minimum probably suited them better (not that Apple isn't rolling in cash or anything).
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Of course it took them two weeks. Don't you know Apple's MO? They take what someone else made, then spend a while polishing it to a brilliant luster, then pretend they invented the damned thing, let their version sink in, get a few million copies to all their sycophantic, empty-headed fans, cult-members, etc., then sue someone else for "copying" them.
It took that time much time because they first had to wade through other, better apologies than they could come up with on their own, and try to figure out how to make them look slick and futuristic. You can't do that in a day, bro. It takes weeks at least, to polish a turd like that. THAT'S WHY. Shortly, they will seek a patent on a method or technique for making other people believe, using printed words, that you are experiencing sorrow and/or regret or remorse for some action you may have taken in the past.
From the summary:
I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple
No, it's very typical. Apple has no integrity. They steal from others, polish to a high luster, sell it to morons, who stare at each new shiny turd from crApple and say to themselves in hushed tones, "oooh... sparkly!" Then, reality in Cupertino so distorted that they believe their own bullshit, they start suing other people for doing something similar, even if those people have never heard of Apple or seen their products, or even if they were first. Like when they stole the idea for the GUI and the mouse-driven interface, then tried to pretend they invented it, just because they removed a couple buttons from the mouse, then sued someone else for doing exactly what they did. So basically, they're fucking shitheaded assholes who have never had an original idea in their lives. They're the worst kind of thieves, hypocrites who get mad when someone tries to steal an idea they stole first, or worse, they get mad when someone whose idea they've stolen tries to compete with them. Jobs was an embarrassment to all those hokey eastern philosophies he claimed to have learned from when he was out finding himself while failing to fulfill his obligations to his family and his kid. What a piece of dog shit he was. The world really is better off.
Anyway, I really hope Apple will just get banned in the UK, as a punishment. They are ignoring court orders, then playing games with them, rather than complying. Who the fuck do they think they are, Microsoft? You can't just ignore what a court tells you like that. Hey, UK... Apple is saying they don't have to obey your little Mickey Mouse laws. Are you okay with that? Are you going to take that? Apple is saying your court is just a little bitch that they don't have to listen to. Are you seriously going to let them flout your laws in this way? Only a bunch of fags would allow that...
: ) Sorry, just really hoping the judge in this case will pull his thumb out of his ass and slam Apple like they so richly deserve. : )
I'm the OP to this sub thread, and I don't understand what you are meaning.
So when is lackadaisical equal to noncompliance?
Sounds to me like someone is tried to force feed child... "You'll eat your soup and you'll like it, kid!"
So what if it took 1 month. Did the court give a deadline? A reasonable person might think that it needed to be quicker than that, but since these trials go on for moths and years, a reasonable person could have easily thought that a month was normal.
Lets say the newspapers would have charged Apple a premium rate if they did it sooner... is the judge requiring Apple do this at any expense?
see how pissed off brits get if apple just says "fuck you, we're taking our ball and going home."
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The fact that Apple is still selling apple products in UK is testament to Tim Cook's more even keel.
How easily you forget the Steve that swore to use Apple's entire cash cache (ha!) to destroy Google. Steve's solution might well have been to pay applicable fines, pull ALL iOS products from the UK, write an open letter to the judge and let public pressure roast the responsible magistrates alive.
Like it or not, Apple IS the big kid in the playground, and they DO make excellent products that generates enormous public demand. Steve repeatedly used that demand like heavy artillery, I don't think he'd hesitate to do so with the little island off the coast of Europe.
The bottom line is that the UK (through consumer demand) needs Apple far more than Apple needs the UK market.
... how much Samsung stock the judge in this case owns. Is the UK legal system so under-worked that this judge has nothing more important to do than grade apologies?
If you are going to apologise, apologise with dignity, damn it!
Dear Apple, learn a lesson from Michael McCain, the CEO of the Canadian food company Maple Leaf Food.
In 2008, there was an outbreak [1] of Listeriosis, which was linked to Maple Leaf products.
What did Mccain do? To quote [2] from The Globe and Mail (a Canadian newspaper of record):
First, it admitted it was the company's fault. It admitted it was responsible. It said, in essence, "it's our fault and we're going to fix it."
Second, Maple Leaf apologized. It wasn't "wordsmithed" or spin-doctored to deny culpability. The company didn't dodge the issue. It apologized up front in every possible media.
Third, it didn't hire a celebrity to deliver the apology, or a blonde actress with very white teeth wearing a lab coat. CEO Michael McCain was the voice and the face of the crisis, and of the apology.
Fourth, once Maple Leaf realized the problem was the company's fault, it acted decisively, and transparently. It recalled more than 200 packaged meat brands (amounting to tens of thousands of individual packages) that were manufactured or packaged at the affected plant.
Which brings me to one of the best quotes about using (or not using) lawyers. CEO Michael McCain said in his apology on TV and on YouTube[3]: "Going through the crisis there are two advisers I've paid no attention to. The first are the lawyers, and the second are the accountants. It's not about money or legal liability; this is about our being accountable for providing consumers with safe food. This is a terrible tragedy. To those people who have become ill, and to the families who have lost loved ones, I want to express my deepest and most sincere sympathies. Words cannot begin to express our sadness for your pain."
(bolded by me)
I am not saying this let's MLF off the hook, but darn it, when it came to apologising, they didn't mince their words.
Dear Apple, just shut and apologise, and get over it already. MLF did it and got over it, so can you.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_Leaf_Foods#Canadian_Food_Inspection_Agency_recall
[2]: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/the-best-legal-advice-is-often-an-apology/article626797/
[3]: (original link in article wasn't working, here is an alternative) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSrazdNo55U
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Or they could just use Android phones. Temper tantrums aren't a good way to run a business.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Did the court give a deadline?
Yes; the court gave a deadlne. The court said "as early as possible," That basically means "tomorrow; but if you can show you really made a good effort and failed, maybe the day after".
Lets say the newspapers would have charged Apple a premium rate if they did it sooner... is the judge requiring Apple do this at any expense?
Yes; that would be obvious from the fact that he said "as early as possible" rather than "as early as reasonable". This is a judge. Every word he puts in a judgement is written to be parsed very carefully and exactly. Please go and read the fucking article.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Are you stupid? The public would be angry at Apple, not a Judge if this were to happen.
If called tor a third ruling on the subject, the judges wouldn't be that kind. At all.
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
You seem to be suggesting that mere consumer popularity should permit that corporations can act effectively above the law, and that they can behave as illegally as they please. There are very obvious reasons why this can not be permitted! The law is the law, and Apple were found to be a pack of liars who are continuing to bring baseless legal action against their competitors. They have been hoisted on their own petard by their legal actions here, given that all of this is self-inflicted, and they are acting like a spoiled, petulant child.
While kind of offtopic, if Apple were to be banned from trading in the UK, I think you'd find that it would hurt Apple Inc much more than it would British citizens. There are plenty of other computer and gadget manufacturers out there who would pick up the slack. Apple just manufacture shiny, but limited, gadgets. The world does not revolve around them.
Apple Apple Apple!!! Always in the news,trying to prove themselves all over. Just get the fact:You can be the best(which i doubt),but that doesnt mean there wont be competitions.
Why? Apple can bugger off and not much will change. People can still buy tablets the idiots that want Apple products will still get them via the grey market and everyone else will carry on using windows/android devices like they always have.
The bottom line is that the UK (through consumer demand) needs Apple far more than Apple needs the UK market.
You need some Prozac. If Apple followed your fanciful prescription its stock would be worth $100 billion less the next day, for starters.
By the way, it is clear to everyone but you that consumers like Samsung's products more than Apple's.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Steve repeatedly used that demand like heavy artillery, I don't think he'd hesitate to do so with the little island off the coast of Europe.
I recall the Germans thinking that same shit in the 40s. It didn't turn out the way they expected, and I seriously doubt it would for Apple.
The bottom line is that the UK (through consumer demand) needs Apple far more than Apple needs the UK market.
Deluded.
OK, let's humour you:
Apple withdraws from UK market, not because it's now unprofitable but because they want to defy the courts.
Share price drops - UK is very profitable market.
Shareholders sue for destruction of shareholder value.
Shareholders win, virtually automatically.
This is why the first step never happens.
is why the mysterious Pamela Jones and the rest of the open-source community has identified Apple as The Great Satan. What has Apple ever done to hurt them? Complied with the GPL? OK. Guilty as charged. People who love their Apple devices get derided as fanbois. People who hate, without ever being harmed, are the good guys?
Did nobody notice the java script they implemented that, no matter what resolution you have (even 2560x1600), you would NEED to scroll down to see the non-apology. They actually use a neat bit of programming to actively hide the announcement.
Dick move, Apple. Dick move. But that shows why they needed 2 weeks to program.
Order Wozniak back. He had all the class. I have a soft spot for him. It eventually became obvious why he left.
The standard in the corporate world these days is to NEVER admit they are wrong and act as arrogant as possible.
That's because if you admit you were wrong, you open yourself up to a metric *crapton* of lawsuits. From consumers claiming pain and suffering. From stockholders claiming failure of due diligence. From partners or suppliers or resellers claiming breach of contract or bad faith etc...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Who needs misleading comments or apologies below the scroll? This is how you do it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8vA0ANTUM0
Then there's the apology from The Closer:
Brenda: I'd like to start with you, Ms. Powell. I'd like to say how sorry I am that I was unable to ignore your general level of incompetence in the wrongly obtained conviction in the case of Bill Croelick. And I'm sorry if you felt hurt and defensive about putting a man on death row for the wrong crime, and I certainly hope that that will never, ever happen again. Agent Jackson, I deeply regret that the FBI handed over two million dollars to a man on a terrorist watch list without the capacity to trace it, or managed to follow him for months without knowing his wife was having an affair with a doctor, and I hope you do much better in the future. Captain Taylor, I suppose I should apologize to you for not having been born in Los Angeles, but having seen you work up close now for several months, I can honestly say that try as I might, I can't think of any fair and reasonable system on earth where I wouldn't outrank you. There. I hope that clears everything up.
It's fun on TV, but Apple should know this kind of thing doesn't work in the real world.
It's a sort of threat, you see.
Plan My Week for iPhone
I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple.'"
NOOOOOOPE!!!!!!!!!
Public pressure will (rightfully) punish the brat who took his ball and went home when told follow the rules of the game. This would not be small or temporary, Apple would be out of the UK market permanently, almost certainly issued a sales ban for the rest of the E.U., the executives responsible would be subject to arrest upon trying to enter the E.U. and it's shareholders would sue them for destruction of value of the stock, which would plummet like a rock, as would any company that unashamedly puts their ego in front of legality, revenue and common sense.
The only pressure would be from judges around the world, any lawsuit they lost in any other country would immediately result in the highest penalties and the harshest consequences the judge can impose. No judge would let their country be the next UK.
So, yes, that would be a great thing for them to do.
If you're Samsung.
I'd love to see the web stats for Apple.co.uk for the past few weeks. Whether it realises this or not, the UK court has ruled that anyone wanting to see Apple acknowledge the court ruling has to see an ad for iPad Mini / iPhone 5 too.
Of a single apple product.
Why, that sounds almost as if they would be held accountable for their actions, to the extent that it might actually be disadvantageous to break the law...
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
The fact that Apple is still selling apple products in UK is testament to Tim Cook's more even keel.
How easily you forget the Steve that swore to use Apple's entire cash cache (ha!) to destroy Google. Steve's solution might well have been to pay applicable fines, pull ALL iOS products from the UK, write an open letter to the judge and let public pressure roast the responsible magistrates alive.
Like it or not, Apple IS the big kid in the playground, and they DO make excellent products that generates enormous public demand. Steve repeatedly used that demand like heavy artillery, I don't think he'd hesitate to do so with the little island off the coast of Europe.
The bottom line is that the UK (through consumer demand) needs Apple far more than Apple needs the UK market.
The Judges in this case are not Magistrates. English Judges are not elected which means they are immune to being roasted by public opinion. In theory they are even independent of the Executive arm (in England this is Parliament). This (in theory) allows them to uphold THE LAW without having to be concerned about losing their jobs because they ruled against & upset the third cousin, twice removed, of the British Prime Minister. They virtually have the job for life & would have to do something incredibly stupid to be removed.
As for this little Island off the coast of Europe, the UK, I think you'll find that we as a people support the rulings of our judiciary as long as we feel the ruling has been reached impartially & according to the Law of the Land. I hardly think "consumer demand" would cause a ripple. One of the complaints you might hear from us regarding our membership of the EU is that we follow EU regulations, to our detriment, while other Countries pick & choose which rules they follow, to their own advantage.
As for "Steve" paying all applicable fines: YES! We need the money.
Apple need to be very careful they don't do anything silly & open themselves to an unlimited fine however. I only mention this as I have wondered, once or twice, if they have chosen to ignore Legal advice or are taking said advice from an American firm.
No. We don't. That is just rubbish. Look up apples uk sales, iTunes stats etc and stop talking nonsense.
Unless I miss my mark, they've now scaled the size of their Ipad advertisement up to take up the full page, so that once a certain size is reached, their menu buttons cannot be seen. So although the size of the advert is now fixed, they've still made sure that the notice doesn't still doesn't appear on most browser screens.
So once again, they show themselves to be the arrogant assholes that was typified by the person Steve Jobs was.
The judge is foolish. He should have handed them a HTML notice, crafted by the courts, requiring a click-through that doesn't appear for five seconds for the first visit to the page each day by a new person.
Yeah, that's pretty hard, but corporates like Apple don't really play the game failry, so perhaps when it's time to shame them, they should lose more control over how it happens.
That's because if you admit you were wrong, you open yourself up to a metric *crapton* of lawsuits.
Considering we're talking about one of the richest companies in the world here, I think it'd be a good time to break out the world's smallest violin.
Option 1 is don't break the law. Option 2 is, having been caught breaking the law, take your medicine quietly and without fuss. Option 3- wriggle, throw a tantrum, and try to weasel your way out of things- is not a good choice for one of the world's favourite brands.
I'm not an Apple fanboy, and I can't say I run across many of them in my day-to-day life. I own some of their products, and I don't like some of their other products. I also use Windows and Linux computers. I've hardly ever met a computer I didn't like. I don't like the iOS, or any of it's associated hardware, but I love OSX far above any other operating system.
My experience with Apple products that I have owned is that they just work - without a lot of fiddling around, and they last forever (I still have an apple powerbook from 1998 that is still functional, and works as a music player in my office, and several other apple machines over 10 years old that still are useful and functional).
It IS true that Apple is not immune to virus'. However, I have been using Apple computers for near 20 years, and have never gotten a virus or any other sort of malware. And I download a LOT of stuff.
The best thing about Apple, in my experience is their customer service. They have fixed things out of warranty for me, stretched the rules on several occasions to make sure I was a happy customer. I have never gone to Apple support or the Genius Bar and ended up being disappointed. I know this to be true of other Apple owners that have had experiences with Apple Care. I just had an issue with an item I bought from Samsung, and went around an eternal loop of phone calls and emails with the company for months, and never did get satisfaction. If it had been Apple, it would have been taken care of with a single 5-minute phone call. Apple Care is just a pleasure. I have no idea how much arrogance might exist in the Apple Corp higher echelon, but most Apple employees are enthusiastic, humble, and eager to help.
I expect a certain amount of Apple haters are people who have little or no experience with the product, and just find it easier to bad mouth the product than to take the time to find out about it. Or who just want to buy a budget computer and then justify that decision. It is true - you can't buy a brand new Apple laptop for $299.
As for the whole tablet patent thing, I think it's clear that the iPad was the model for every tablet that has come out since. You'd have to be blind or in denial to think that the tablets that followed on the iPad's heels weren't copying both design and function. Whether or not that should be protected by patents, or whether or not copying is a good thing for competition isn't even really the issue. Apple was the innovator for tablets as we know them. The new Windows Surface, at least, does have some original ideas in form and function. Most of the rest are iPad wanna be's. Personally, I wouldn't buy an iPad - I don't like the walled garden of iOS, and I hate the lack of a file system. But whether I like it, or whether I would buy it, or even want to use it - it's hard to deny that Samsung copied them straight out. Most of the nasty legal stuff and despicable behavior around this is just lawyers being lawyers - not necessarily the collective consciousness of Apple users and employees.
Anyhow, just my 2-cents. In the end, they are all just electronic tools, machines...
There already are some sanctions. They have to pay the full costs of this litigation. Not just the normal costs (which are more routinely awarded), but the FULL cost. So every phone call, every line item, every little thing the other side got billed for will get payed for by Apple.