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Apple the Loser in ThinkSecret Settlement?
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*Shrugs* I lost any and all respect for Apple when they used the DMCA. As far as I'm concerned they are up there with every scummy company on the planet for that...this just reinforces my impression. Apple is the new IBM. Its a bitter pill for some, and every zealot will come out the woodworks defending them but it doesn't change the fact that Apple's corp culture has changed to the point that they look more like IBM of the 80's then the Apple of the same time period. Jobs as destroyed the company when it comes to their "soul" all in the name of sales.
And my prior theory still stands until someone comes out with a better one. This all started just after Jobs's bout with cancer. He's trying to put the company in a position where they can do without him...which is all well and fine..but at what cost?
And my prior theory still stands until someone comes out with a better one. This all started just after Jobs's bout with cancer. He's trying to put the company in a position where they can do without him...which is all well and fine..but at what cost?
Simple. To get rid of them.
If ThinkSecret is costing Apple more money to ignore than it would to pay them to shut down, Apple will pay them.
who needs journalistic integrity, upholding the constitution and saying no to multi billion dollar business bullies when there's money settlements to be won...
Journalism is employment. This isn't a case of printing a lie. If someone offered to pay you 10x more than you make in one year to simply quit your job, you would in all likelyhood take it, especially if it's a job that's already at its peak (ThinkSecret) and you're burned out at.
Simple; Nick won. Apple was going to lose the court case, so they offered to pay Nick a lot of money in exchange for him shutting down the site.
Apple didn't really lose, but Nick won overall.
At least that's my take. I could be completely wrong. Who knows
The real losers are all of us that visited Think Secret - too bad it was shut down. I'm guessing a settlement would be based on revenue Nick projected to receive in the future based on what ad revenue was presently generated by TS.
Not a bad deal to get a pay out like that - I wonder if he will be bared from starting a new site.
My thoughts exactly! And I say more power to him.
I'll miss ThinkSecret, but I can respect someone wanting to move on to other projects.Two things come to mind, first it has cost Apple a lot of their cash mountain to buy the ThinkSecret brand and website and second their lawyers will have told them their brand will be kept cleaner this way.
In reality they are using their financial and legal muscle to stifle criticism, as they see it, it will appear somewhere else.
The ThinkSecret site will soon be replaced, that is the nature of the internet.
From what relatively little I know about such things, this seems good for journalists as a whole.
And let's hear it for Nick being a legit player in the game since age 13.
I mean, when I was 13...
And let's hear it for Nick being a legit player in the game since age 13.
I mean, when I was 13...
I've signed a few NDAs in my time. Part of the blurb always notes that a breach will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Effectively that is what happened. Somebody broke their NDA, and Apple pursued the matter as far as they could. Even if no actual prosecution of the guilty party was achieved, Apple could not let it slide - else its NDAs would be essentially worthless.
Apple took things "to the full extent of the law" - just like their NDA probably said they would. End of story.
Effectively that is what happened. Somebody broke their NDA, and Apple pursued the matter as far as they could. Even if no actual prosecution of the guilty party was achieved, Apple could not let it slide - else its NDAs would be essentially worthless.
Apple took things "to the full extent of the law" - just like their NDA probably said they would. End of story.
I'm going to guess you weren't an adult in the '70s and '80s. Apple has been very aggressive in litigation throughout its history. It sued those who reverse-engineered the Apple ][ and tried (unsuccessfully) to sue MS for copying the Mac OS (the infamous "look and feel" lawsuit). BTW, this was back when Jobs was the CEO and well before his bout with cancer.
The lawsuit here is very much in keeping with Apple's corporate history.
Wikipedia article obviously updated today mentions MacRumors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_dePlume
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_dePlume
Simple; Nick won. Apple was going to lose the court case, so they offered to pay Nick a lot of money in exchange for him shutting down the site.
Apple didn't really lose, but Nick won overall.
At least that's my take. I could be completely wrong. Who knows
Who's to say Apple was going to lose.
It seems pretty clear under law that he made money out of a trade secret/s, and he know. He was toast.
Of course pushing it further might have moved the story from Geek news to real news, so while pushing it further may have been a legal win it would have been a really bad PR move. As all the incorrect gasbagging of first amendment would of hit mainstream media.
It was a good time to for Apple settle.
Just because something is of interest to the public that doesn't make it "Public Interest", one was going to get hurt from this news not getting out.
It's not like he broke the Sony battery story.
Some people may have brought a product only to find out it was updated shortly after, but if that some how results in a lose then they shouldn't have brought it in the first place. After all the product they brought still as good as advertised.
Nick moves on like he was probably going to do anyway.
He gets to keep his life, and doesn't do time.
At best call it a draw for the parties, and as always a win for lawyers bank balances.
I must have missed the period when Apple was not trying to make money and let everybody know about what they were working on for the next couple of years. It is more likely you were delusional then and now facing the reality hurts.
I don't get why you call IBM scummy. It was slow to react to the shift in the marketplace, did not realize the significance of PCs, so they outsourced the operating system to Microsoft, but what make them so evil? I mean, yeah Lotus was a horrible office suite, but I don't hate IBM for it, it is more like a pity.
No more evil than any other corporation.
Being that I own stock in the company, I guess I am the embodiment of evil. What fun!
Simple; Nick won. Apple was going to lose the court case, so they offered to pay Nick a lot of money in exchange for him shutting down the site.
Apple didn't really lose, but Nick won overall.
At least that's my take. I could be completely wrong. Who knows
I see it this way also. Nick doesn't appear to have any attention to reveal his source(s). Although Apple has the resources to keep harrassing him, if nothing amounts from it that approach was a waste of time and money. Also they would be subjected themself to the court of public opinion which would undoubtedly side with a college kid. It's likely more cost effective to buy this kid's site and remove him from the mix entirely than to continue paying counsel to pursue the matter.
So yes Nick is the winner, he was making money from advertisers but there must have been a figure large enough where he would foresake future monies. Plus if you're in college I am sure you'd rather focus on school as opposed to fighting big corporations.
I'd tell you but then... well... you remember what happened to ThinkSecret, right?
You hit the nail on the head. My favorite part about a few NDAs I've had is that I can't even disclose that I have an NDA with that company.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
Aha! See, this is EXACTLY how Apple can be harmed by rumour sites! You're saying that the $249 was "more than double" the price you expected it to be... but that expected $100 price was plucked out of thin air, made up by a rumour site! That kind of disappointment and lost sales directly harms Apple, and I can see why they would be very unhappy about a rogue rumour site..
I see it EVERY TIME a new Apple product is (about to be) released. The threads on the forums, hundreds of posts speculating and speculating, each building up on the expectations of the previous, and then when Apple finally releases the product.... "But... but... It was supposed to... where's the ...." And suddenly everybody's mad at Apple FOR NO REASON other than they inflated their own expectations and were disappointed by the result.