Apple Sites Looking to Block Subpoenas

[tex210]

You all have made my point.

The when in doubt part. The freedom of speech defense is a red-herring to distract from the real offense. Trade secrets or Industrial espionage.
All of /. will again fill with comments about Apple trying to squish a little guy who is just trying to express himself. The little nda details will get buried as usual.

To the poster who dare not post the solution... Draconian behavior is already here.
Was it pages or keynote that requires an activation key?
Expecting it not to end up in the os and betas is optimistic (or naive).
If that's what you were (not)talking about.

 

[Sayhey]

What trade secrets were revealed? Was there any proprietary code published? NO. Only the existence of future products. Are we really ready to sacrifice our First Amendment right to publish about what corporations are up to on the altar of business desire for complete secrecy? Give me a break guys! Yes, the First Amendment is not absolute, but does that mean that this is where and how we want to limit it? I don't think so, and I certainly hope not!

As I said in my first post, Apple has a legitimate beef with any employee who signed a non-disclosure agreement and then went to the press. Find 'em and fire 'em, but leave the reporters out of this.

 

[GonzoRob]

I dunno.

Freedom of speech, etc. Sure, all for it.

But I have always had a hard time swallowing the 'journalist' title some of these rumor site publishers give to themselves. Can anyone just click a few mouse buttons to run a web site, post what they like and call themselves a journalist, and then expect to have 'rights' that their 'bretheren' have traditionally enjoyed?

Seems a little too easy to me. There ought to be some kind of standard that one must be able to meet in order to be called a journalist, or a member of the press.

Cronkite, Woodward, Bernstein.... DePlume?

Not.

jour·nal·ist
n.

1. One whose occupation is journalism.
2. One who keeps a journal

Websites reach the public domain as much as the next media format. They provide information, and therefore require reporting.
I'd be the first to admit there are lots of idiots on websites out there BUT thousands of journalists start out on these websites. Who are we to judge who the *real* journalist is?
In the UK journalists join the NUJ (the national union of journalists) when they can prove 60%+ of their earnings are from journalism.
I love flashing my card about

Also, to get into the NUJ it helps to be qualified. Long term experience at a papaer or a course are the usual methods. (i think you can get a student membership if you take any course)

As for the legal-beagle side of things ...

New Media is, in relative terms, in its infancy and there are still a number of legal grey areas which have yet to be testted in court. Good journalists on the internet should be aware of these grey areas and modify their content accordingly. However webjournalists are subject to all the legal restrictions print jounalists are subject to. Irrespective to the 'means' of published information. ie. "anonymous" usenet posts. Chat rooms. Email or any file transfer system. Online libraries.
A libellous statement is no less libellous simply because it is contained in an email or posted on a BBS. Not only do New Media journo's need to be very aware of the defamation rists but also contempt of court (ie. if one websites is not allowed to release a bit of information ALL websites are banned from doing so)
Just because Mac Rumor sites stretch international boundaries it doesnt mean it can quite blatantly breach Apples confidence. Below are the tree points (nabbed from the old NcNae's Essential Law for Journalists ) that consitute a breach (in the UK)
1) the information must have 'the necessary quality of confidence' (ie. were the documents/secrets reated as confidential - i think you'll find they were)
2) the information must have been imparted in circumstances imposing an obligation of confidence (working at Apple suffices for this)
3)there must be an unauthorised use of that information to the detriment of the party communicating it (Apple could probably prove that the leaked information would hit sales figures by stopping people buying the current models)

and there you go ..
in the UK this would have been an open and shut case. The journo would be allowed to 'protect' he source.. but apple could still take a heap load of cash off him and the publishers( which in this case is his crummy website .. ie. him again) for damages. Thats the problem with saying you are a journlist - you are then judged as a journalist (ie. you should have known better) and *if* you loose.. boy.. do you loose
this is all in the UK - whats the score in the USA?


rant over

 

[mactarkus]

I love rumor sites too but...

Legally right or wrong, what ThinkSecret was doing was not publishing rumors. They were publishing facts! When the Shuffle and miniMac were announced (the second time -- by Apple) it was a letdown because I already knew. As much I wanted to know in advance, when the official announcements were made, I regretted knowing the truth beforehand. I prefer good old fashioned rumors and speculation to reading the full specifications days in advance. It's more fun to think about what might come out than be told exactly what will.

ThinkSecret is bad for Apple and the Macintosh.

I love rumor sites. They help Apple create hype! Dumb to sue them.

 

[Les Kern]

Even if it does go to court it will be thrown out almost immediatly. Whats Apple going to do? say, "They found out a secret I didnt want to tell right then and want to sue them becuase they hurt my feelings and bribed one of my employees" ~4 year old whining voice~

True. But even though I doubt any rumor site will be the loser here, "freedom of speech" does not protect an employee who leaks info after signing a non-disclosure statement. That person can be and should be held liable, and I believe the rumor sites should be required to cooperate with authorities. Part of Apple's mystique is the surprise factor, and sure is part of their strategy to survive. A company's existence could be at stake which affects thousand of people, and the folks who break contracts should be strung up. If a rumor site doesn't cooperate, they too should be held as an accessory. End of story.

 

[fixyourthinking]

1st ammendment rights

Even if it does go to court it will be thrown out almost immediatly. Whats Apple going to do?

I don't think it will - California Law (which Apple is governed by and can use) SPECIFICALLY addresses the published dissemination of trade secrets as illegal.

California is one of approximately 44 or 45 states that have adopted [the] Uniform Trade Secrets Act. That statute makes it wrongful to acquire or publish without authorization information you know or have a reasonable basis to know is a trade secret of another”


Also, where in this sentence ... do you see that journalists are immune to civil lawsuit from what they say or publish? And where does it say that anyone can say what ever they feel like they can say at any time without impunity?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

This says government can't limit what you say by the creation of restrictive laws. It doesn't say, words and business plans are NOT property. It doesn't say, you can report whatever you want for your profit and someone else's loss.

What it originally meant is that Congress couldn't pass a law restricting reporting or establishing a nationally specific denomination or religious mandate.

... our First Amendment right to publish about what corporations are up to ....

Umm ... that's a first ammendment right???

 

[Paul O'Keefe]

Where is the love?

wanna know what would be really cool? if the creator or Thinksecret.com was not an American citizen and had absolutly no right and therefore got royally screwed.

Because the right to freedom of speech belongs soley to Americans.

Why does being a fan of apple mean that some believe that it can do no wrong? This type of rumor reporting is no different than the rumor and gossip surrounding hollywood and upcoming films, and who is being cast for what role, etc.

As long as Think Secret is not bribing or blackmailing people there should be no problem.

 

[fixyourthinking]

maybe not bribery but solicitation

As long as Think Secret is not bribing or blackmailing people there should be no problem.

Extend your list of offenses that you think Apple has merit in this case to: solicitation.

Think Secret - apart from ALL OTHER rumor sites - specifically solicits information through a phone number. Therefore, enticing people to call.

What many of you are confused about on the bribery part is ... one doesn't necessarily have to pay someone $$ to bribe them. Anonymous ego boosting notariety is also payment to some.

Think Secret was inarguably one of the most hits websites around MacWorld Expo. In fact - it even broke the top 25 according Netcraft on 2 days.

Do you not think the people that gave the information to Nick Ciarelli were proud? Do you not think some of them felt important? Do you not think some of them are reading boards like this right now - revelling in the fact that we are discussing the very information they dealt out illegally - making them feel even more important???

I have brought this point up sveral times as well - I'm not sure if Think Secret/Nick Ciarelli are entirely all good intentions. It has always bothered me that they seem to be the first one with breaking news about the reseller lawsuits. These suits are completely without merit and come from two of the WORST resellers to ever hock Apple products or services EVER! (There's plenty of proof online - such as http://www.omino.com/~dom/readme/tomsantos.html)

 

[100ime]

secrets and injunctions

If Apple want to stop its secrets leaking they should look to their own internal procedures. Having worked with (Government) classified information I know that this can be difficult and expensive but - that's life.

The courts should only be used to stop people who are endangering their Country, not multi-nationals. If they want industrial secrecy backed by the Courts they should move their operations to Switzerland.

 

[MacSA]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4266909.stm

Apple are getting some bad press over this.

 

[dobbin]

BBC news is reporting that a civil liberties group is getting involved in this case against Apple.

No matter what the legal position is, Apple need to be careful that they don't lose the moral high ground, and also the wide respect they enjoy from the general public.

They need to balance the need to keep their secrets secret, and the need to maintain a decent public image. The worst thing they could do is end up getting a reputation like Microsoft, as a mega-corporation which is solely interested in making money whatever the personal consequences for people and customers. (Thats what all big companies are of course, including Apple, but it helps them if they can hide this fact)

 

[dobbin]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4266909.stm

Apple are getting some bad press over this.

MacSA - you beat me to it!!

 

[maelstromr]

Think again.

If the sites leaked Apple's customer list and parts ordering, those supoenas would almost certainly be granted. Yes, they did find a secret....a trade secret, which are not protected by the First Amendment.

The courts may yet quash those supeonas, but it is not nearly as cut and dried as you think.

No kidding!

First Amendment blah blah blah...that's right guys, it's so simple that you with your high school once through the Constitution know exactly how this will boil down in court. (Or maybe I am mistaken and a surprisingly large number of Con Law, IP and International law lawyers/professors read macrumors.com.) The entire POINT of trade-marking and protecting industry secrets/data is so journalists CANNOT give it to whoever they want. And there ARE international law and rules to be followed. If these "journalists" knew they were disseminating protected information, they could be in trouble too! Even if they aren't in trouble per se, there is some precedent to force them to hand over information on how they received ill-gotten news.

 

[fixyourthinking]

No matter what the legal position is, Apple needs to be careful that they don't lose the moral high ground, and also the wide respect they enjoy from the general public.

They need to balance the need to keep their secrets secret, and the need to maintain a decent public image. The worst thing they could do is end up getting a reputation like Microsoft, as a mega-corporation which is solely interested in making money whatever the personal consequences for people and customers. (Thats what all big companies are of course, including Apple, but it helps them if they can hide this fact)

You're taking "Apple's public image" way out of context. The average Mac User and the average consumer has almost no knowledge of any of this. Because we are discussing it does not make it TOP NEWS.

Also, what part of capitalism do you not understand here - Apple has the right to keep it's property (business plans) private and Mac Websites have the responsibility to know the law, not push the bounds or twist the meaning of constitutional law, and respect us as consumers. (Do you think that these lawsuits might be an extra $5, $10, $20 cost on every Mac sold??)

Think Secret is no different than an underage porn site. It is illegal to publish it, yet there are plenty who are curious to see it.

One person had this to say on my website:

"...Think Secret (in achieving a degree of accuracy that can only be a result of people breaking their NDAs) becomes analogous to the old Head Shops, that sold drug paraphernalia. Nothing they actually sold was, strictly speaking, illegal. But the only uses for most of their products WERE illegal. And so Head Shops were made illegal, too."

 

[pounce]

How can NDAs exist if they appear to be unconstitutional according to the first amendment? Wouldn't the freedom of speech overrule any NDA?

while i'm no lawyer, not all speech is protected by the first amendment. nor should it be.

hate speech or speech that incites violence isn't protected, yelling fire in a movie theatre isn't, and things like liable are not protected. there are specific laws regarding media using information that they know is protected under nda and prohibiting them from using this information. they don't have to be under nda's themselves.

while this is an uphill battle, apple has every right to protect it's internal operations and secrets as they see fit. for this information to have leaked out someone must have broken an nda. and as such, publishing information leaked in this manner isn't protected. nor should it be.

a longer post with all of the details that i'm generalizing was found (and somewhat ignored) in the original thread on this topic. while the first amendment provides some rights, with all rights come responsibility. hence the other laws like liable, and not yelling fire in a moviehouse, etc.

while sites like this allow users to postulate possible future releases and so forth, we shouldn't be trying to get people do break nda's. that's uncool, period. and illegal. i don't see apple being the big bad company here, someone broke their nda's, and if you don't -enforce_ the nda's somehow, if they don't act somehow, it sends the message that the nda's don't mean anything. so i think apple is doing what it was forced to do by the person or people who broke that nda.

 

[iBook]

The Boston Globe just lost a $2 million defamation case last week...

There's a nice little Supreme Court Decision, c. 1964 - Sullivan vs. the New York Times. The press is protected from legal action unless "actual malice" can be proven. And another case in 1973, name of which eludes me, protects the press if the facts of the story are true.

 

[billystlyes]

Apple leave the rumors sites alone! What do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the ocean....a good start. I don't see tha damage guys, its called free speech!

 

[iBook]

That's one of the things you learn at journalism schools.

Really? Care to cite your sources?

 

[Hattig]

The rumour sites are free to post whatever they like once they have the information, unless they signed an NDA with Apple of course, because then they become part of the trade secret system and cannot post anything about it.

If the people get status as journalists, then they will be allowed to keep their sources secret. I think that is a basic right of anybody actually, unless the posting is untrue, libel/slanderous/etc.

It is up to Apple to police their trade secret leaks, not the police or the courts. Once they have identified the leak, they can take any necessary action.

 

[ASP272]

Apple will lose. Freedom of speech, journalistic freedom, internet location, the fact that the disclosures were on RUMOR sites . . . all present huge hurdles for Apple to present a case. That's just my opinion anyway.

 

[iBook]

What trade secrets were revealed? Was there any proprietary code published? NO. Only the existence of future products. Are we really ready to sacrifice our First Amendment right to publish about what corporations are up to on the altar of business desire for complete secrecy? Give me a break guys! Yes, the First Amendment is not absolute, but does that mean that this is where and how we want to limit it? I don't think so, and I certainly hope not!

As I said in my first post, Apple has a legitimate beef with any employee who signed a non-disclosure agreement and then went to the press. Find 'em and fire 'em, but leave the reporters out of this.

Exactly. The press for years have published stories of upcoming products.

Any car-people here? There's a photographer -- Jim Dunne, I think -- who routinely shoots photos of cars the automakers are testing on the roads around their Michigan offices. (Read about Jim: http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?n=156,192&sid=192&article=990)

Granted, it's sometimes a wink-wink relationship because they want the free ink and the buzz around their new products. But he also stakes out the testing facilities to get the scoop on the latest product.

None of these companies, with far more at stake than Apple, has ever sued any of the publications in which this guy's photos appear. And we're talking Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, etc. Pubs with deep pockets.

Apple is on a Jobs-induced frenzy. They simply want to punish the person who violated an NDA and they're willing to knock down all the kids in the schoolyard to get to him/her.

 

[phasornc]

I dunno.

Freedom of speech, etc. Sure, all for it.

But I have always had a hard time swallowing the 'journalist' title some of these rumor site publishers give to themselves. Can anyone just click a few mouse buttons to run a web site, post what they like and call themselves a journalist, and then expect to have 'rights' that their 'bretheren' have traditionally enjoyed?

Seems a little too easy to me. There ought to be some kind of standard that one must be able to meet in order to be called a journalist, or a member of the press.

Cronkite, Woodward, Bernstein.... DePlume?

Not.

Your not American are you? If you are, you need to take your high school civics class again, assuming your not 12. You don't need credentials in the US to qualify for freedom of speech. Freedom of the Press, basically means that anyone publishing anything remotely newsworthy (ie. not planting a secret camera in your house and publishing you in your underwear), is given the highest protection possible. The only things that trump freedom of speech, if an item is remotely newsworthy, are things that are of the most urgent national security (the usual example is giving away troop locations in a time of war), and contract, that is if you have exchanged your right to free speech in exchange for some other benefit defined in a contract. I don't think any rumors sites are under any contract with Apple and I would think that, any new product release from Apple is newsworthy, therefore as long and DePlume didn't kidnap and torture and Apple employee to get the information, it seems like a pretty open and shut case.

 

[fatfish]

Apple leave the rumors sites alone! What do you call a lawyer at the bottom of the ocean....a good start. I don't see tha damage guys, its called free speech!

Free speech, Oh and human rights, would these be the very reasons we in the UK we have known terrorists walking the streets simply because the evidence against them was obtained from tapping private phone conversations for example or other sources that infringe the individuals rights.

Free speech has it's place especially when it uncovers something that is potentially threatening, but in this case it would seem that an individual has probably benefited at the expense of Apple.

Three points here:
-I don't think I've seen it said that Apple is actually going after the rumour sites, just getting them to disclose information.
-Rumour may or may not be true, it is speculation. What was printed was known to be true and therefore not rumour.
-Apple wouldn't keep these things secret if they didn't think it did them some good. OK it may be arguable how much damage was done when the disclosure was so close to MacWorld, but read carefully, not all that was disclosed was unveiled at MacWorld, it still has potential to do more damage. Then of course there is the principle, if this is acceptable then what is next.

IMHO Apple should go for both it's employees and the journalist(???), string 'em up, hang 'em out to dry. Whether it's against the 1st amendment to get info from the rumour site, I don't know, it shouldn't be, but that's for a judge to decide. Whether Apple will win, I don't know, they should do, but again that's for a judge to decide.

 

[fixyourthinking]

Bad example

Exactly. The press for years have published stories of upcoming products.

Any car-people here? There's a photographer -- Jim Dunne, I think -- who routinely shoots photos of cars the automakers are testing on the roads around their Michigan offices. (Read about Jim: http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?n=156,192&sid=192&article=990)

Granted, it's sometimes a wink-wink relationship because they want the free ink and the buzz around their new products. But he also stakes out the testing facilities to get the scoop on the latest product.

I live near the BMW Z3,Z4,X3,X5 manufacturing plant in Greenville SC. One of my best friends is part of the IT department there.

He tells me stories about how they rouitinely arrest photographers, have to sue often, and have an incredibly hard interview process to route people who might become "insiders" for Motor Trend magazine etc.

That was a bad example - because the auto industry is the only other industry that I can really think of that Apple will be able to set precedents with.

Concerning the wink wink relationships - you are correct - Apple does this more than you would think about hinting at technologies and products that might come out. Hmmm ... I think that's what the Tiger demo at Macworld was all about.

Three points here:
-I don't think I've seen it said that Apple is actually going after the rumour sites, just getting them to disclose information.
-Rumour may or may not be true, it is speculation. What was printed was known to be true and therefore not rumour.
-Apple wouldn't keep these things secret if they didn't think it did them some good. OK it may be arguable how much damage was done when the disclosure was so close to MacWorld, but read carefully, not all that was disclosed was unveiled at MacWorld, it still has potential to do more damage. Then of course there is the principle, if this is acceptable then what is next.

Good points to ponder...

 

[fatfish]

Concerning the wink wink relationships - you are correct - Apple does this more than you would think about hinting at technologies and products that might come out. Hmmm ... I think that's what the Tiger demo at Macworld was all about.

Yeah but if that's the case it's because Apple want to. They also don't want other stuff leaking out, that's why they have ND contracts with thier employees and why they CAN sue 'em if they break those contracts.

Basically all the rumour site did was to aid and abet a civil crime.