Apple Pulped In Court By Journalists

WebProNews Staff — Fri, 26 May 2006 20:36:30 +0000

Three online journalists sued by Apple gained a victory in appeals court when judges ruled in favor of a petition filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation regarding the protection of sources.

Offline journalists have had the constitutional privilege of source confidentiality, but when Apple pursued a trio of online reporters for their sources, a trial court upheld the subpoena Apple tried to use to discover them.

PowerPage.org and AppleInsider.com had been the focus of Apple’s attention ever since they published articles about a new Firewire audio interface for the GarageBand application. Apple wanted to uncover who leaked the information to those sites by subpoenaing email records.

That subpoena was thrown out by the judges in the Court of Appeal for California’s Sixth Appellate District, according to an announcement by the EFF. Those judges found online reporters were entitled to constitutional protection as well as eligibility for protection under California’s reporter’s shield law.

Apple’s subpoena for PowerPage.org’s email found no favor with the appellate court. The judges decided the subpoena violated the federal Stored Communications Act. The EFF discussed that in their statement:

“In addition to being a free speech victory for every citizen reporter who uses the Internet to distribute news, today’s decision is a profound electronic privacy victory for everyone who uses email,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “The court correctly found that under federal law, civil litigants can’t subpoena your stored email from your service provider.”

The EFF cited the judges’ decision on determining what is news in praising the outcome of the case:

In their decision, the judges wrote: “We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ news. Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law, or process of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the memetic marketplace.”

—

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Apple, Bloggers Fight In Court

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:02:12 +0000

A battle that could determine whether bloggers may enjoy conventional journalistic protection behind the First Amendment has a court date coming up on April 20th.

Apple, Bloggers Fight In Court

The Electronic Frontier Foundation noted the Apple v Does lawsuit heads to the courtroom on Thursday. Apple wants two fan sites, AppleInsider and PowerPage, to turnover sources that provided them with insider information on forthcoming Apple products.

Apple also wants PowerPage’s email provider, Nfox.com, to hand over email so it can track down the source that gave up Apple’s product information. Despite great consumer popularity, Apple has its detractors in the media who find the company’s attitudes towards the press at best apathetic.

The media does have what Apple claims bloggers do not have, a privilege under the Constitution to maintain the confidentiality of a source. But bloggers feel otherwise, and will face Apple in court over the issue.

A November 2004 article published at AppleInsider about a new audio interface to the GarageBand audio application. Apple considered that a theft of trade secrets.

The Mercury News reported on the coming storm, noting a vast array of high tech companies and the former dean of Stanford Law School have aligned themselves against bloggers being protected by the First Amendment.

An EFF attorney responded to that in the article:

“The First Amendment wasn’t designed to protect the organized press,” said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who is representing (PowerPage’s Jason) O’Grady in the case. “It was to protect the right of the lonely pamphleteer who put a pamphlet up on the walls. A blogger is much more akin to those lonely pamphleteers.”

A March 2005 court decision in favor of Apple discovering the source behind the leak did not address the issue of journalistic protection. The subsequent appeal hopes to receive a decision that treats the typical blogger like a journalist.

—

Add to | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl It | PreFound.com

Bookmark WebProNews –

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

WebProNews » PowerPage

Apple Pulped In Court By Journalists

Apple, Bloggers Fight In Court