Apple: Brilliant minds, stupid lawyers

In case you didn't see it, Apple won the first round in court to get the sources of leaked information to some Apple fan sites. That's not right.

Just because it's not The New York Times doesn't make it any less journalism. If The Times posted the same information, nothing would ever come of this. You know I'm right. This nonsense about what is a "bona fide news agency" is ridiculous. If there were any real standards to hold a news outlet to, Fox News would have been sued and disgraced years ago. Indeed, this same standard must be applied to The New York Times, ABCnews and my local Medina County Gazette. The precedent has been set.

The most disgusting thing about it is that Apple suffered no loss, and more than anything benefited from the publicity. The information wasn't leaked early enough for any competitor to act on it, and just as is the case every time there's a leak, it built hype for the company.

This is about chest thumping at Apple, sticking it to the guy with no lawyer. That's really lame, Steve. Taking on your fan base is a really stupid idea.

3 Comments

  • Apple isn't the only one attacking its fan base. MS has been going after the little guy for years. MikeRoweSoft, Wimdows, etc. I'm not sure these constitute an attempt to exploit the Microsoft/Windows trademarks, Mike Rowe was using MS technology, and Wimdows was a site (fairly popular) promoting the use of .NET technology.



    Apparently, MS and Apple are big enough that they don't have to worry about losing a few customers.



    -Kyle

  • Those examples aren't exactly on behalf of people who are fans of Microsoft.

  • The MikeRoweSoft case was settled amicably from what I read from Mike himself. Microsoft even threw in a free X-Box and paid to have the name transfered. Companies have to protect their copyrights or they could end up loosing them.



    Xerox for example makes a big point during it's traing for all employees that the term Xerox is not to be used as a verb, as in "Can you xerox this doc for me?". If that became common enough usage, they could actually loose the copyright to that name.



    That's a lot different than Apple trying to break down a pillar of journalism when no harm has come to them. That one right of journalist has allowed many people to come forward and expose wrong doings and illegal activity without fear of reprisal. Are the courts saying that will soon no longer be the case, or is there now a double standard for the small guys? If so, where is the line drawn? Who is protected and who isn't? How do they know? This is a big can of worms that I don't think should be opened.



    If it's ok for them to do it to these guys, do you really think they will stop at that level? Of course not. Their next target could very well be some smaller online news site or your local community paper.

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