Re: Better learn your Internet law, first
Originally posted by websterphreaky
You better learn your Internet law first. According to a rulling by the Supreme Court in 2002, you may "Quote" materail from an internet source if published on a public page, so long as your are not selling the information for profit.
I'm trying to figure out what you're talking about here. Are you talking about the Fatwallet case? That never went to court, much less to the Supreme Court. But that's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that even resembles what you said.
In the Fatwallet case, Wal-Mart accused Fatwallet of copyright violations because Fatwallet posted Wal-Mart's prices on their (Fatwallet's) web site. The two parties settled out of court in December, 2002.
(I'm really sick of typing Fatwallet now.)
The general guideline is that anything that has been published is fair game for fair use, and fair use includes reporting. But stuff that
hasn't been published is not automatically fair game. There are issues of trade secrets to deal with. The basic rule of thumb on trade secrets is that if you take reasonable measures to protect your secrets--in other words, if you
act like they're secrets--then they're protected by law above and beyond what ordinary copyright law offers.
In this case, we're clearly dealing with a trade secret. The information was either leaked without official authorization or it was released accidentally. Mere minutes or hours later, the information had been removed from the page where it had been inadvertently made available. So when Apple comes a-knockin' with the cease-and-desist letter, you'd better listen. It's got teeth.
But as others have so well pointed out, there's no need for a C&D here. If Apple asks, we comply. That's just plain, ordinary, garden-variety courtesy. For the same reason, we don't go dumpster-diving outside Apple headquarters. We don't try to sneak into closed events. We sit and watch and observe and comment and speculate, speculate, speculate. But it's all in good fun. And posting something after Apple has asked us not to is not good fun.
Trust me. There are
plenty of sites out there where you can read all the dirt you want. Go knock yourself out. Meanwhile, we'll just wait until Monday and see what happens.