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Internet Apple Drops Legal Battle with Leakers
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - July 13, 2006 9:05 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 32 comment(s) - last by captchaos2.. on Jul 13 at 5:49 PM
Judges say online journalists should be protected by the same laws as traditional journalists

According to reports, Apple this week decided to drop its legal battle with several online websites that leaked information about unreleased Apple products. Despite a long drawn out battle, Apple decided not to appeal a ruling by a panel of three judges that rejected Apple's arguments that the writers for the online websites were not "true journalists."

Apple went after AppleInsider, MacNN.com and PowerPage.org after information was released about a FireWire product codenamed Asteroid for its music application GarageBand. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) ended up supporting the three websites and said that Apple's actions undermined the rights of journalists and threatened the safety of those who leak information to journalists. Judge Franklin Elia was quoted saying that Apple tried to "trump the First Amendment."

In May, a court ruling denied Apple rights to have the identities of those who leaked information be revealed. The case was originally filed in a Santa Clara County court but judges wondered why Apple had not performed any investigation internally. The judges felt that Apple had not exercised enough internal investigation to justify going outside of the company. "Apple has failed to establish that it adequately pursued other possible means to identify the source of the information in question," said the judges.

EFF attorney Kurt Opsahl said that "[Apple] just can't take a shortcut through a journalist" to identify the source of information. Although Apple did not submit an appeal -- and the deadline to do so has passed -- court documents showed that Apple's own internal investigators interviewed 29 employees. No details were released on the results of the investigation.

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Nice Apple
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 9:11:32 AM , Rating: 2
It's about time. I love how Apple lovers defend the company so often, then you see Apple suing websites that exist because of fans of their products. These sites are generating interest in Apple products, and provide "free" advertising.

Way to alienate your customers.




RE: Nice Apple
By AppaYipYip on 7/13/2006 9:15:25 AM , Rating: 1
Provide proof of your claim.

Also, Apple is a company like any other. They need to protect their intellectual property. If you owned a company as big as Apple, would you want someone leaking information that is yours?


RE: Nice Apple
By TomZ on 7/13/2006 9:22:48 AM , Rating: 1
Apple should protect their IP, however, they also need to respect the laws of the land, i.e., the First Amendment in this case.


RE: Nice Apple
By MercenaryForHire on 7/13/2006 9:23:39 AM , Rating: 1
No, and I'd be rightfully pissed about it.

I'd also want to find out who the snivelling little SOB was, and (break their knees | fire them) as soon as possible.

However, I wouldn't go steamrolling over the rights of journalists to get to their sources.

- M4H


RE: Nice Apple
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 9:24:55 AM , Rating: 2
They sued them over their sources. When they said their sources were protected by freedom of press, Apple claimed that online journalists don't have the same freedom of press rights. Complete BS.

Just like the judge said, they can do internal investigation, but just like if the New York Times had a source inside a company, they cannot force them to give up their sources.

There are other ways to better protect intellectual property than suing after the fact. Like better security.


Your assessment is hollow
By DallasTexas on 7/13/2006 9:53:02 AM , Rating: 1
"..There are other ways to better protect intellectual property than suing after the fact. Like better security..."

You can agree or disagree if freedom of the press applies and outweighs everything , even when the outcome causes harm is totally up to you. I certainly disagree with you there but opinions are opinions.

What is amazing to me is you disregard Apples interest in this matter and sweep in under the rug in "they could always protect their stuff better". It's the same argument of malicious virus writes and computer hackers.

Even freedom of speech is curtailed when it causes harm. How about you yelling fire in a theatre and say you have a bomb at an airport to test that theory out. You will find that a similar philosophy extends to technology intellectual property when profits and competitiveness is measured in many ways in time to market.




RE: Your assessment is hollow
By TomZ on 7/13/2006 10:11:44 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
You can agree or disagree if freedom of the press applies and outweighs everything , even when the outcome causes harm is totally up to you. I certainly disagree with you there but opinions are opinions.

Apple's assertion that they could penetrate First Amendment protection for journalists was found to be wrong by a three-judge panel. Therefore, I see this more as a fact than an opinion. You may not agree with the finding, but it doesn't change the legal validity.
quote:
Even freedom of speech is curtailed when it causes harm. How about you yelling fire in a theatre and say you have a bomb at an airport to test that theory out.

Obviously freedoms are relative, but the judges in this case determined that the impact to Apple causes less harm then establishing a precedent for penetrating First Amendment protection for journalists.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 10:39:22 AM , Rating: 2
Thank you TomZ.

The issue is, we are not talking about safety (as in the examples you gave). We are talking money. Money and a companies well-being should never trump first amendment rights. That is an opinion, but it's an opinion that many others share.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By DallasTexas on 7/13/2006 10:44:00 AM , Rating: 1
All your stating is that the judges opinion (ruling) is legally binding based on their determination who/what gets hurt the most.

It does not take away from my point (which you cleverly ignored) that sweeping Apples claims under the rug as "just protect it better" is a one sided view of the problem.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 10:52:59 AM , Rating: 2
No, it really is not a one sided view.

Protecting it better is what they HAVE to do. Other companies have to deal with this sort of thing as well. It's not Apple who's being picked on, its Apple who tried to change the way things were done, and they were firmly told "NO" by the courts.

One duty as a company if you want to remain competitive in the global marketplace is security of IP. It is part of developing, and marketing a product. ALL companies have to deal with this.

I work for a company that develops it's own IP, and our security is quite good. Yes, it costs money, but that is a cost of doing business.

YOU are cleverly ignoring the fact that the first amendment should not be idly sidestepped so that Apple can save money on security. They should conduct there own internal investigation, and if that is not enough, they should implement security measures to prevent this sort of thing from occurring again, or tracking the perp if it does.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By OrSin on 7/13/2006 11:08:19 AM , Rating: 2
Sorry Bu I would ahve to side with apple here even if the judes don't. I'm all for free- of speech but I think people need to be accountable for what they say and print.
I can at this piont print anything i want about any one and say a source told me and I'm protected. it Might be legal but I think its crap. I think all jorunalist should have to produce proof of what they print or if the the information is clearer a link, then be responisble for the damages it causes. I know this will never be the case, but Free Speech should not the freedom print anything. Jornalist knew the leaked inforamtion was illegal gotten and people should be allow to benefit from it. And the website did benefit from it (increase ad revenue).

Once again I know its legal but IMHO it shouldn't be.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By DallasTexas on 7/13/2006 11:20:26 AM , Rating: 2
"..I work for a company that develops it's own IP, and our security is quite good. Yes, it costs money, but that is a cost of doing business. .."

Really? Are your company's security mechanisms that good? Even the CIA can't protect their most valuable information. Like the US government, your company is one rogue employee away from giving spilling all your secrets.

Again, it's a total disregard on your part that Apple, Intel, MS and most of the tech industry's assertion that allowing flagrant abuse of their intellectual property is a valid concern in an industry that lives and dies by this.

To your last point that I am ignoring the 1st ammendment virtues, Yes, agree with you that 1st ammendment challenges should not be idly sidestepped.

I'm certainly done with this circular argument. I give up. You win.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 11:28:45 AM , Rating: 2
They are good. Not infallible. But if something like this happened you would see extensive investigation, combing of employee hard disks, and certainly under-oath questioning, possibly even lie detectors. Exactly what Apple should do - not sue the journalists.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By segagenesis on 7/13/2006 11:08:54 AM , Rating: 2
LOUD NOISES

So... posting with all bold text now means that it's right automatically?

Seriously though, chill out. It might suck pretty bad for Apple but at the same time were not going to start poking holes in the First Amendment and get on a slippery slope. Imagine if it got to the point where if you protest something the police knock on the door and makes you "disappear" for saying things people dont agree with. Try to not criticize the legal system that protects you and allows you to criticize in the first place!


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By DallasTexas on 7/13/2006 11:35:32 AM , Rating: 2
Oh goodie. Now we are arguing which is the best format for separating a quote from a response.

Good grief. The problem with forums is you don't know if you're debating a 10 year old or not. It's a best guess system.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By segagenesis on 7/13/2006 12:31:31 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Oh goodie. Now we are arguing which is the best format for separating a quote from a response.


Yeah because you forgot about the button labelled "Quote". Last I checked it did not read "bold" and says "Quote". I mentioned it because it was amusing that you are the only person on DailyTech I've ever seen use all bold in his post and it reminded me of reading comments on Fark where people use huge letters and all bold to try and get attention when they know they are losing an argument.

quote:
Sorry Bu I would ahve to side with apple here even if the judes don't. I'm all for free- of speech but I think people need to be accountable for what they say and print.


You are not all for freedom of speech then. By your judgement sites like this who give a bad rating on reviewed hardware could then be sued by hardware manufacturers even if the product really was bad. Brilliant idea there, make sure you dont accidentally set the rest of the Bill of Rights on fire while your at it.

quote:
I can at this piont print anything i want about any one and say a source told me and I'm protected. it Might be legal but I think its crap. I think all jorunalist should have to produce proof of what they print or if the the information is clearer a link, then be responisble for the damages it causes. I know this will never be the case, but Free Speech should not the freedom print anything.


Mark Felt and the Washington Post are screaming at you right now. Like what I said above you either can have your cake and eat it too, or have none at all. You might think its "crap" or "should be illegal" but you apparently have no idea what freedom of the press has done for us in the past... I hear there is DeLorean heading back to the Soviet Union circa 1971, you might want to hope a ride.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By akugami on 7/13/2006 11:13:46 AM , Rating: 2
Well said TomZ. The First Amendment should not be sidestepped, heck stepped upon, just so Apple can find out who leaked the information. It is Apple's job to hire trustworthy employees and it is Apple's job to prevent it from getting leaked. Web news sites, even if it's blog style like Engadget and Dailytech should be protected by the First Amendment for printing news. And this is coming from someone who likes Apple products. It's not like the news leakage was a matter of national security in which case I would say spill the beans but keep the case sealed to protect any other secrets that may come out of the investigations.


RE: Your assessment is hollow
By smitty3268 on 7/13/2006 1:17:45 PM , Rating: 2
I believe the issue is what is better for the public. You can't just discard the 1st ammendment unless there is a compelling reason why the public would be better off without it. Loss of life is pretty compelling, possibly generating a few more bucks for a private company is not.


RE: Nice Apple
By defter on 7/13/2006 10:58:58 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
They need to protect their intellectual property.


They aren't protecting "intellectual property" here.

Imagine if AMD/Intel would do the same thing and sue Dailytech or Inquirer for leaking roadmaps?


RE: Nice Apple
By TomZ on 7/13/2006 11:05:27 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
They aren't protecting "intellectual property" here.

Not sure what you mean by that. By trying to find out the source of the leak, presumably to punish and/or fire the employee, Apple is helping to protect their trade secrets from release in the future. There is nothing unreasonable about that. The only thing that was unreasonable is Apply trying to force journalists to help them short-cut their own internal investigation to find out the sources.


RE: Nice Apple
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 11:07:59 AM , Rating: 2
I can see how you could call it "intellectual property" - but your right, it wasn't as if they posted pages and pages of engineering schematics. It was only concerning a firewire interface for GarageBand which AFAIK didn't provide any technical info.

A pro-Apple ruling here would have been a very very bad thing for Tech sites and journalism in general.


RE: Nice Apple
By TomZ on 7/13/2006 3:25:19 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I can see how you could call it "intellectual property" - but your right, it wasn't as if they posted pages and pages of engineering schematics. It was only concerning a firewire interface for GarageBand which AFAIK didn't provide any technical info.

Future product plans can be trade secrets, which is what this was.


RE: Nice Apple
By Dfere on 7/13/2006 12:44:53 PM , Rating: 2
The answer, of course, is NO. No one here stated infomration is proprietary and should not be leaked. You missed or deliberately ignored the point made by the post you criticize and the article.

BUT, you don't sue a journalist for inquiry or press, you sue or fire the employee who violated the NDA or the normal confidentiality all employees have when working for an organization, implicit or explicit. Apple works hard to state they treat their employees fairly, so perhaps this is why they never relaesed the fact that they might be in the process of doing this. All we know is they wanted to find, and presumably sue, whatever sources informed the press.

Its the job of the press to report news. This item was legitimate news, despite a dearth of such. If the information is true, and it is not in violation of any law (federal, civil?), how can they be sued for publishing it?


RE: Nice Apple
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 1:25:14 PM , Rating: 2
RE: Nice Apple
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 1:27:12 PM , Rating: 3
That should have been for Helbore's post. DailyTech, you need to fix these issues!


RE: Nice Apple
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 7/13/2006 5:08:02 PM , Rating: 2
Noted - we're working on it.


Legal stupidity
By Helbore on 7/13/2006 1:13:20 PM , Rating: 2
I dont understand how Apple's case brings up so much controversy on the first amendment.People talk like if they'd succeeeded, all our rights to free speech would be curtailed.

Freedom of the press is supposed to be about providing information to the public that government or business might want to hide and would be dangerous to the public. for instance, stopping the press from reporting on government corruption or that a business was building dangerous products. If somebody breaks the law to report on such far-reaching illegal activities, then they need to be protected otherwise people wouldn't risk their necks.

However, in this case, someone has broken an NDA (which must have happened for trade secrets to be leaked, unless a careless exec left a file on the train!) and all that was reported was about an upcoming product. nothing that benefits society to know. Apple weren't committing a crime and were caught out by an internal informer. They just had a criminal member of staff steal documents and provide them to a journalist.

Why should this be allowed? People like to talk about the constitution, but I think such behaviour spits in the face of the founding fathers. The constitution was created to protect the people, not assist the criminals. Its an insult to what the first amendment was introduced for. Criminals should not be allowed to steal and then hide behind the law to protect themselves.




RE: Legal stupidity
By smitty3268 on 7/13/2006 1:22:39 PM , Rating: 3
You are basically advocating breaking the 1st ammendment unless it is really important, which is the opposite of how the law is usually interpreted - upholding the ammendment unless it is really important.

I can see what you are arguing, but for me it is the classic case of a "slippery slope." Who decides what is important enough to justify applying the 1st ammendment?


RE: Legal stupidity
By rrsurfer1 on 7/13/2006 1:28:05 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly.


RE: Legal stupidity
By Rapsven on 7/13/2006 1:36:24 PM , Rating: 2
Amendment rights have been broken before, just in extreme circumstances, which bolsters the above poster's remarks.

For example, our right to a fair and speedy trial were essentially ignored. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War in order to conduct warfare in a streamlined manner. Sure, you can cry foul and say he had no right to do it, but in that sort of situation, it is much more forgivable and understandeable. Taney and the other justices might have disagreed with Lincoln, but they wouldn't on practical grounds.

Trampling on amendment rights almost always happen during times of war. Now we're in the peace time. If amendment rights are revoked/ignored during the peace, there is a massive problem with our society.


RE: Legal stupidity
By captchaos2 on 7/13/2006 5:49:25 PM , Rating: 2
Why is it illegal for a person to stalk someone else, but legal for paparazzi to do it? Why is it a crime for a CIA agent to leak info about secret operations, but ok for a company employee to do the same? Why is it ok for a "journalist" to hold out money in his hand and find a weak individual to get what they want, but we arrest prostitutes and johns for the same kind of transactions? Why is it ok for "journalists" to ruin countless peoples' lives or sink companies just for the sake of a story and a magazine/newspaper sale? Sorry, but the First Amendment was not made to cover irresponsible, self-serving "journalists". Freedom of the Press means that real journalists can report on the truth and actual events as they really happen with no censorship, but it does not mean that depraved, morally bankrupt "journalists" can hold money out to weak company employees to buy company information on intellectual property that they have no rights to and does not belong to them.


RE: Legal stupidity
By TomZ on 7/13/2006 1:57:50 PM , Rating: 2
The answer to your question lies in history and human nature. In essence, if the government were able to get journalists to always give up their sources, then the government would likely seek to silence sources by abusing the legal system. The net effect of this type of repression would be more control of the press by the government, which is contrary to the principle that one of the most important roles of the press is to inform citizens about the actions of the government.

You can substitute "corporation" for "government" in the above - the situation is pretty much the same.


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