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Apple: Web writers not 'legitimate members of the press'

post #1 of 10
4/22/06 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/busine...9353413,00.htm

Apple pushes to unmask product leaker
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Friday , April 21 2006 11:23 AM

A California court in San Jose on Thursday is scheduled to hear a case brought by Apple Computer that eventually could answer an unsettled legal question: Should online journalists receive the same rights as traditional reporters?

Apple claims they should not. Its lawyers say in court documents that Web scribes are not "legitimate members of the press" when they reveal details about forthcoming products that the company would prefer to keep confidential.



That argument has drawn stiff opposition from bloggers and traditional journalists. But it did seem to be sufficient to convince Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James P. Kleinberg, who ruled in March 2005 that Apple's attempt to subpoena the electronic records of an Apple news site could proceed.


"Unlike the whistleblower who discloses a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or the government employee who reveals mismanagement or worse by our public officials, (the Macintosh news sites) are doing nothing more than feeding the public's insatiable desire for information," Kleinberg wrote at the time.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Apple news site PowerPage.org, is hoping the appeals court will pull the plug on a subpoena that could yield details about who leaked information about a FireWire audio interface for GarageBand that has been codenamed "Asteroid." The subpoena is on hold during the appeal.

"The California Court of Appeals has a long history of protecting freedom of the press," Kurt Opsahl, an EFF staff attorney who is arguing the case, said on Wednesday. "We're hopeful they'll continue to do so."

In the lawsuit, filed in late 2004, Apple is not suing the Mac news sites directly, but instead has focused on still-unnamed "John Doe" defendants. The subpoena has been sent to Nfox.com, PowerPage's e-mail provider, which says it will comply if legally permitted.

Even though the AppleInsider site also published information about the Asteroid device, it operated its own e-mail service and would have been able to raise a stronger First Amendment claim if it had been sent a subpoena. (In a separate case, Apple directly sued another enthusiast site, Think Secret, alleging that it infringed on Apple's trade secret in soliciting inside information.)

The types of articles about Apple that Jason O'Grady, PowerPage.org's creator, posts every few days don't seem that different from those that many news organizations produce. They include reports on Apple's patent disputes, benchmarks of software performance, reviews of software and news about upcoming products that have not officially been announced.

Being the first to publish news about forthcoming products--as long as the information is accurate--is generally regarded by journalists as a coup. CNET News.com was the first to report, for instance, that Apple was switching from PowerPC processors to Intel chips last year. (Full disclosure: O'Grady has begun writing a blog for ZDNet, also owned by CNET.)
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post #2 of 10
4/23/06 at 4:37am
Have to side with Apple on this one. Freedom of the press is there to support investigation into stories that are in the public interest, not stories that the public are interested in.

This isn't journalism, it's corporate espionage.
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post #3 of 10
4/23/06 at 4:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dan Whitehead
Freedom of the press is there to support investigation into stories that are in the public interest, not stories that the public are interested in.
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I guess People Magazine better shut its doors then.
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post #4 of 10
4/23/06 at 5:43am
Apple has a legal case to make, but talk about being a bully. Apple's compeitiors are so far behind in playing catch up that its not like the rumors are that damaging to the bottom line. Besides, everyone else has to deal with these types of rumor sites.
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post #5 of 10
4/23/06 at 5:53am
Many would agree with you. There are lawsuits about that as well.

Bold and broad definitions of "freedom" only work if people take responsibility for what they do with it. Just as the freedom of the press to invesigate and report needs to be protected, so to do the freedoms of private interests to get on with their lives and conduct their business without being spied on solely to satiate the public's utterly unneccesary hunger for pointless information.

I don't particularly care about Apple, but if you set the precedent that employees can break contract and tell anybody what their employer is working on, then that makes it harder for smaller firms to remain competitive. It's an abuse of the system, and you can't excuse that abuse by playing the blanket "freedom" card. To do so is the height of intellectual and moral laziness.

If Apple's confidential information is being leaked, then they should be able to use the law to find out how, and who is responsible. This isn't Watergate, it isn't Enron, it's a fucking gadget blog. Any attempt to use the same defense makes a mockery of the reasons the press has freedom.

And in my opinion, writing about Apple products for a website doesn't make you a journalist. It makes you a writer.
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post #6 of 10
4/23/06 at 7:51am
Sorry Dan, but you're very, very wrong. The government should not be allowed to define what the press is or is not, as they will end up doing so in their own best interests.
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post #7 of 10
4/23/06 at 8:08am
I'm not saying the government should be able to rubber stamp who gets to be "press" and who doesn't, but at the same time it's ridiculous - and dangerous - to say that anyone can register a domain or sign up for a TypePad account, divulge any private information to the world purely for their own benefit and/or amusement, and then claim protection from legal retaliation because they're "press".

I know you know this, but it's central to this sort of situation: Journalism is a profession - not a title you can just bestow on yourself because you post words online. There's training, and qualifications, and unions - all put in place as checks and balances to make sure that the freedoms granted to the media are used responsibly.

The current laws are outdated in the face of new information technology, and it's cases like this that will force it to evolve. And, while I'm no apologist for major corporations, businesses shouldn't be restricted from investigating internal security issues because some website wanted to boost their hits with a dubiously acquired scoop.

It's not like they're protecting Deep Throat. They're withholding the name of someone who leaked confidential product information that the public manifestly did not need to know. Apple - and any business in the same position - shouldn't be forced to put up with that.

It sucks that the claimant in this case is such a vast corporation, because it makes it harder to sympathise, but the company is perfectly within its right to be hugely pissed off about this.
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post #8 of 10
4/23/06 at 8:23am
The thing is that anyone CAN set up a typepad account and do that. Just like how in the 1780s anyone COULD set up or rent a printing press and print their own paper. That's exactly the point of the First Amendment in this nation - not just that the respectable press could be out there, but so that the dissident, unruly voices could be out there as well.

Honestly, technology hasn't changed a thing about the press - go find papers from the establishment of the US Constitution and you're going to find out about people's cows calving and other such utter "non-news." The very definitions of what news is change over time, and that has nothing to do with technology.

Further, the business can investigate whatever it wants. This case is about whether the sites in question should be forced to divulge their sources, which is something completely different. Also, Apple is a publically traded company, making this sort of information actual news to people who invest in them or are considering doing so.
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post #9 of 10
4/23/06 at 10:48am
I guess I just have a problem with the idea of "protecting your sources" when the sources in question aren't doing anything terribly deserving of protection. And, yeah, I know that the idea must remain constant regardless of context for it to be fair, but it galls me to see it being used for what I see as purely selfish reasons, rather than to help build a criminal or conspiracy case that matters.

Leaking details of a new FireWire connection isn't in the public interest, and if your job is at risk if you do leak that information - don't fucking leak it. And if you do, at least be man enough to face the consequences of your actions.

As for the benefit being to shareholders, that's a pretty thin premise. It's not inconceivable, but then you can conjure up a reason for divulging most information in that way. I'd like to see them argue that in court, actually.
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post #10 of 10
4/23/06 at 2:03pm
Like what Dev said above, we should not have the government decide what is legitimate or illegitimate news.

While the particular application of the 2nd Amendment in this case may leave a sour taste in your mouth, the court should rule for the defendants. If they don't, the courts would be potentially aborting a viable and important new tool for spreading useful information, web journalism.
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