How is Apple rotten?
My favourite Mac commentator, John Gruber, has more to say today about the much discussed Apple versus ThinkSecret lawsuit. For any reader who doesn’t already know, the lawsuit revolves around leaking of confidential information about (at the time) unreleased Apple products, which the ThinkSecret editors published on their site. Apple is (I believe) suing for loss of revenue resulting from these leaks (their share price too a dip when the actual products failed to live up to all the rumours). More importantly, Apple is attempting to obtain the names of the ThinkSecret sources, in this case Apple employees who have breached their Non Disclosure Agreement.
John points out the rather meaningless assertion by ThinkSecret that Apple would not be suing if the New York Times (their example, not mine) had published the leaked information. This argument is useless, as John points out:
Most people seem to be taking this assertion at face value, but why? This is a bogus argument, on several levels.
First and foremost, not only didn’t The New York Times publish such information, they wouldn’t. The Times doesn’t print unsubstantiated or dubiously-sourced gossipy conjecture on unannounced or unreleased products. That’s why they’re The New York Times. It’s a nonsensical comparison.
The crux of this argument is that Apple is being a bully; a huge corporate entity, with buckets of cash, picking on poor, innocent ThinkSecret “because they can”. This is rubbish. There is evidence to suggest that ThinkSecret wasn’t offered this information, but actively sought it out, offering potential sources anonymity in return for technical details. ThinkSecret’s defenders claim that, since ThinkSecret didn’t have a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Apple, ThinkSecret have not done anything wrong, and that they should be able to protect their sources using the Journalists Shield.
This leads to the whole “what makes a journalist?” argument. ThinkSecret’s legal team is asserting that anyone with a blog is a journalist, and protected by the same laws that protect “real” journalists. This is a whole other can of worms, and has been discussed at length elsewhere.
What I find bizarre about this whole affair is the idea that, somehow, Apple has no right to defend its intellectual property, just because they are a large corporate monster. This seems so ridiculous. How can they not have the right to defend their own property? Just because Apple ultimately releases these products and makes money from their sale, doesn’t give the general public the right to know about them until Apple is ready to release them. Apple invests millions of dollars in developing these products, has built its reputation on producing innovative and original products that keep it ahead of it’s competitors. Keeping details of these products secure from those competitors is surely right and sensible?
I’ve heard it argued that Apple should clean up it’s own act before placing the blame elsewhere. After all, it was Apple employees who leaked the information. This, again, is rubbish. I don’t believe anyone can realistically expect any company to treat their employees so well that they have complete loyalty from every member of staff, all the time. Staff steal things, end of story. Be it the odd biro, use of the telephone, or a sheet of paper out of the photocopier. Even if threatened with disciplinary action, it will still happen. So to say it is the company’s fault that it’s employees leaked the information doesn’t mean that Apple should just throw up their hands and say “oh well, c’set la vie”.
It also seems to me that many of the people decrying Apple for trying to defend its property, are people who don’t actually produce anything original themselves. My livelyhood relies on producing (hopefully) original material, and profiting from it’s sale. Rest assured, if I found out that a 9 year old girl was generating income for herself (for herself, mark you, not for a charitable cause) by selling t-shirts with my artwork on them, I would use legal means to make her stop. Provided, of course, that she had ignored my inital polite requests to cease and desist. I see no difference with the ThinkSecret case. They used information stolen from Apple (directly or indirectly) to generate income (directly or indirectly).
So please, stop holding this case up as some titanic, heroic David vs Goliath struggle. It’s not. It’s a company exercising the right to protect its property. That’s it. End of list.
March 10th, 2005 at 1:50 am
It’s a company exercising the right to protect its property.
Apple is a company which failed to keep a secret, and is embarrassed and annoyed at itself for letting it out. A company isn’t just made up of its employees; a company IS its employees. So, yes, it should throw up its hands and say not only “c’est la vie” but “mea culpa”.
Facts are not property in the same sense are cars, wallets, or even illustrations. There is no copyright on facts. If you want to keep one a secret, don’t tell anybody about it. If you do, it becomes public property, and it’s no use whingeing about it afterwards.
Apple never really lost anything except a small element of surprise. Jobs is just pissed off that the “oohs” and “aaahs” from his biannual Macworld ego-boost weren’t as loud as he’d hoped. Diddums, is what I say.
Leave the bloggers alone!
Nice blog, btw