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EFF Sues Apple Over BluWiki Legal Threats
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Apr 28, 2009 09:33 AM
from the fight-fight-fight dept.
from the fight-fight-fight dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against Apple to defend the First Amendment rights of BluWiki, a noncommercial, public Internet 'wiki' site operated by OdioWorks. Last year, BluWiki users began a discussion about making some Apple iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than Apple's iTunes. Apple lawyers demanded removal of the content (pdf) sending a letter to OdioWorks, alleging that the discussions constituted copyright infringement and a violation of the DMCA's prohibition on circumventing copy protection measures. Fearing legal action by Apple, OdioWorks took down the discussions from the BluWiki site but has now filed a lawsuit to vindicate its right to restore those discussions (pdf) and seeking a declaratory judgment that the discussions do not violate any of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, and do not infringe any copyrights owned by Apple. 'I take the free speech rights of BluWiki users seriously,' said Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks. 'Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions.'"
Random BedHead Ed adds ZDNet quotes EFF's Fred von Lohmann, who says that this is an issue of censorship. 'Wikis and other community sites are home to many vibrant discussions among hobbyists and tinkerers. It's legal to engage in reverse engineering in order to create a competing product, it's legal to talk about reverse engineering, and it's legal for a public wiki to host those discussions.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Apple: Apple Backs Off DMCA Threats Against Wiki 143 comments
netbuzz writes "A wiki operator who was pressured by Apple's legal team into removing anonymous discussions about circumventing the company's music-playback software for iPods and iPhones says he is relieved that Apple has backed off and he'll be able to restore the disputed material. Apple dropped its claims of copyright and DMCA violation against BluWiki only under legal pressure of its own in the form of a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
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First Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
Fearing legal action by Apple, OdioWorks took down the discussions from the BluWiki site
This is what you get when lawyers are too expensive. Censorship.
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what you get when you create laws that make information illegal. Censorship is nothing but just that: Outlawing certain information, or the spreading thereof.
Parent
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
Censorship is nothing but just that: Outlawing certain information, or the spreading thereof.
The Thought Police has noted your contribution. Thank you for your input, citizen.
P.S. You have three minutes. I suggest you start running.
Parent
Re:First Amendment (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Thought Police. You have made public the response time of our units.
P.S.: your office doors are now locked, no need to run. We'll be there shortly.
Parent
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
P.S.: your office doors are now locked, no need to run. We'll be there shortly.
Tell them to be careful, I ate beans yesterday.
Parent
Re:First Amendment (Score:4, Funny)
I will not run. Kill me if you have to, dying as a free man is better than living the life of a slave.
Parent
Thank you, Spartacus (Score:4, Interesting)
The Thought Police aren't coming to kill you, they are coming to enslave you. Feel like running now? No? Did I mention they are IMAGINARY? Now what are you going to do? How do you fight that which is only in your mind?
Your seriousness has killed the funny. You could have at least put it in terms of a pithy quote about liberty, lions and jackals, or free beer.
Parent
Re:Thank you, Spartacus (Score:4, Interesting)
Did I mention they are IMAGINARY?
It may be irrational to believe they are real, but he expresses what he feels is a transcendental truth.
Parent
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Funny)
Clever. Now all they have to do is look for the guy that just started running.
Parent
Re:First Amendment Apple better KNOCK this (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:First Amendment Apple better KNOCK this (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't get is how the RDF has been so successful at making folks think Apple is better than MSFT, when it comes to freedom. I'm probably going get flamed for this, but what the hell, let us be honest here. Apple LOVES DRM, just like MSFT, Apple LOVES vendor lock in, just like MSFT. If they switched positions tomorrow Apple would be just as nasty when it comes to anti competitive practices as MSFT ever was when Darth Gates was running it(Damn I miss him. The monkey is like a bad Dilbert joke) and any attempt by anybody to go around their locks, even as we saw here to allow interoperability, will get their lawyers falling out of the sky on them.
So I honestly don't get it. The way you hear Apple fanboys talking you'd think Jobs is sitting in some office with his bare feet up tinkering these new toys by hand, when in reality Apple is nothing but a "Mini MSFT" that doesn't have a bumbling marketing monkey screwing with the line. But of course when Steve retires, well I'm sure they'll get their very own Ballmer. if they like Apple because they are shiny, or they think the brushed metal is cool,fine. But please quit trying to make it sound like Apple is this nice hippie company in California. They haven't been that since the Woz quit decades ago. They are just MSFT on a smaller scale, that's all.
They are just lucky that they still have Darth Jobs to wield the dark side of the force for them. All we MSFT users have is a really fat stormtrooper that couldn't hit the broad side of popular with a blaster rifle.
Parent
w00t for the EFF (Score:5, Insightful)
They keep doing very useful (and thankless) work.
Re:w00t for the EFF (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:w00t for the EFF (Score:4, Funny)
So thank them. [eff.org]
But then it wouldn't be thankless. Are you trying to put the poor sap into a race condition???
Parent
Re:w00t for the EFF (Score:4, Insightful)
Thankless? Everyone here (and there are a few hundred thousand) bend over backwards to extoll the virtues of the EFF (and overlook its flaws). They are especially well-funded for a single-issue legal advocacy group, and their members are quoted in the press constantly.
How is that "thankless"? I do not think that word means what you think it does.
Parent
No, but if you use anything else.... (Score:3)
If you use iTunes, you don't care. I don't.
If you use (or would like to use) something else (gtkpod) to manage your iPod, then you might want to thank EFF.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
iTunes is great but they should not have monopoly. I think one can almost argue that they have a monopoly. Especially when an artist with not much money wants to promote their own work. They'll be more successfull advertising that their works are available on "iTunes" than anywhere else.
!streissandeffect (Score:4, Informative)
No Streissand Effect here, folks.
Re:!streissandeffect (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a story regarding the countersuit to an Apple DMCA takedown notice. The EFF want publicity for this case.
The streisand effect would relate to apple's attempt to supress a few people talking about this on some forum and to shut the forum down, and now a lot more people are aware of the topic, the forum, and are talking about it.
Parent
Re:!streissandeffect (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you're analyzing the Streisand effect from the opposite direction of those tagging the story that way.
Apple didn't want a few hobbyists on OdioWorks talking about making the iPod work with software other than iTunes. Now, because they tried to stifle that publicity, there are these suits. Now Apple will have a bunch of people aware that there's a group wanting to make iPods interoperable with other software.
It's Apple getting more publicity because they didn't want it that earned the story the tag. You're right that the EFF wants to raise awareness of issues like this, though.
Parent
What's the Story (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to hear both sides of the story. As important as the EFF is, they tend to ignore anything that doesn't fit with their message, especially when it comes to legal proceedings.
Since Apple is Apple, I doubt we will hear much from them. But I would like to point out that there is a strong bias on the part of the EFF to selectively use facts for propaganda.
See: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/14/193217 [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's the Story (Score:5, Insightful)
You accuse the EFF as having a "strong bias... to selectively use facts for propaganda." You provide a link. But that link does not support your accusation at all. Would you like to clarify? Thanks!
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
The link you provided, your evidence for your accusation against the EFF, makes no mention that the EFF forgot anything It appears that it is your personal opinion that the EFF forgot something and it further appears that you have have no objective evidence to support your personal opinion.
Re:What's the Story (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you quickly scrolled through the comments..."
You honestly expect me to waste my time searching for evidence to support an accusation made by an anonymous coward? Seriously?
The EFF is an advocacy group pushing an agenda. I have no doubt that the group manipulates facts to further its agenda. This is not based on any actions of the EFF, but is based on advocacy groups in general.
However, before I make a specific accusation about the EFF I'd want my facts straight. Giving a link to posting which does not back up my accusation is not good enough. And expecting people to go through 1079 comments to find my evidence is ludicrous.
Here's how you do it. Take the EFF press release, take the "real facts" behind the story, and show how the EFF twisted the facts. It would not be hard to do.
Of course you'll argue that I could do it. But it's not my accusation. So why would I do it?!
Parent
Re:What's the Story (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:What's the Story (Score:5, Informative)
I believe this was the project where they were attempting to brute force the key that encrypted the song database on the newer iPhone/Touch firmwares. They did this by requesting everyone upload their own copy of the database off their device.
The purpose in doing this was to enable third party programs to actually sync with the device, since currently the only way to do so is through iTunes (even the third party programs that do so now rely on being able to hook into it's dlls).
Apple hit them with a C&D letter indicating that the project was a viloation of the DMCA, specificly an attempt to bypass DRM.
The question will be, do the courts agree with Apple?
Parent
Don't toast bread with a hammer (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want flexibility and choice then why use an iPod? I respect the BluWiki guys for standing up to Apple, but seriously, it's so much easier to take the path of least resistance and use an MP3 player that supports Explorer or Finder or command line mounting. Then you can use your player as a storage device as well. iPod and Zune are equally miserable in this regard.
My player of choice is the Creative Zen. It comes with proprietary software, but it's optional so you can use Explorer if you prefer. Only drawback is that they only come in solid-state flavours, no HDD, so the max capacity is 32GB (in case you only sit at a computer once every 3 months to add new music).
Re:Don't toast bread with a hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, there are many perspectives on this. Yours advocates what I've always called "pragmatic", which boils down to (using your words) "path of least resistance" while accomplishing the desired affect. In many arenas, I'm like that too.
Others want the iPod (why? I dunno. It's spiffy and has neato features, and don't underestimate the power of "cool" and technofetishism.) But they don't want to be locked into iTunes. So, they find ways to overcome Apple's artificial monopoly-enforcement tool. I admire the tenacity, and wish them the best.
Me? I don't buy Apple stuff, not merely to avoid their lock-in traps, but as an actual statement. They get no money from me as long as they continue to use the courts and their own internal censorship systems (thread suppression on Apple fora) as their way of enforcing their vision of the world on their customers. Respect first sale and the customer's inherent right of use, and we can do business, Apple.
But that's just me.
Besides, I'm so old and crusty that I don't even bother with those new-fangled digital audio doohickeys. Now get offa my lawn!
Parent
Re:Don't toast bread with a hammer (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I hate Apple too due to their legal threats and libellous advertising. It just so happens I had a rational argument against them this time, plus they're not the only offenders when it comes to proprietary lock-in. I'm also happy to see the EFF probing the DMCA from every angle to find the loopholes or dissolve it outright. However, like my subject says, if you buy a tool because of what it might be some day then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Apple - Think Different (and we'll sue you)
Parent
Re:Don't toast bread with a hammer (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Apple reverse engineered (Score:5, Interesting)
Not going to work... (Score:3, Insightful)
The courts have an easy way out of this one. They'll declare there's no "case or controversy" and dismiss the complaint, just like they did when the RIAA threatned Dr. Felten over releasing watermarking information.
The only way to get heard in court when someone sends you a C&D is to fail to desist, and let them sue you. Of course, given the other side has far more resources, that's kind of like taking up Dirty Harry on his "Do you feel lucky, punk?" challenge.
Re:Chicken (Score:5, Insightful)
Chickenshit?
Oh, you mean "Not willing to go to court with Apple and possibly lose his business in damages."
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, they did Sam, because you were too chickenshit to stand up to them. Now you want to stand behind a court decision before you muster up the "courage" to re-post the posts. If you are really concerned, re-post then go to court. Defend your users.
That's pretty big talk. You do realize that being sued, even if you win, you still lose because of the lawyer fees. Apple can afford to spend millions on their lawyers, can you afford millions on your lawyers? Do you think Sam can? What he did was smart. He backed off so they couldn't bury him into the ground in legal crap and then sued for the right to repost the data. His lawyer may be charging on a comission. If they win Sam and his lawyer will get paid, and the data will be restored. If he stood u
Re:Chicken (Score:4, Insightful)
And what I'm getting at is that unless you are hosting such a site and have refused to obey a cease and desist letter from Apple, inviting them to sue you, you can STFU about his level of courage and your opinion of how he should have shot himself in the foot just to spite Apple.
He is fighting back, in a far more intelligent manner than what you proposed. If he, and you, are right that Apple doesn't have a leg to stand on, then the only harm done is that the project was delayed.
If, however, you both are wrong about Apple's legal strategy and this isn't the making of another SCO level FUD battle, in other words if the judge actually buys Apples arguement, then his method at least protects him and his users from further harm in the matter. Your method simply leaves him bankrupt.
Argue the merits of the case, argue the merits of Apple's business strategy. But unless you've already put your own balls on the fire here, keep your trollish opines on Sam's to yourself.
Parent
Re:For Apple to claim copyright... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what they mean by a copyright claim.
Parent
Re:For Apple to claim copyright... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame that someone can sue someone else and ruin that person just on legal fee's. I am pretty sure the gov't does not provide free council to people in civil suits. It's a major flaw in our countries legal system.
Parent
Re:For Apple to claim copyright... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you've just outlined the entire MPAA/RIAA prosecution strategy to boot...
Parent
Re:For Apple to claim copyright... (Score:5, Interesting)
My understanding is that they aren't claiming "copyright infringement", but rather DMCA anti-circumvention clause violations.
The anti-circumvention clause is the biggest problem with the DMCA. Issues of copyright term, severity of damages, etc. are all significant, but at least they make some kind of sense on the conceptual map of copyright law. Anti-circumvention says: you can't have, make, try to make, describe how to make, etc. anything for the purpose of breaking a copyright protection.
What's a copyright protection? Well, that's open to interpretation. How do we decide if something's purpose is to break a copyright protection? Also open to interpretation.
Apple seems to be saying that if you reverse-engineer their system to interoperate with other software, you can use that to violate someone's copyright - and that defeating some copyright protection in their system is the primary purpose for which you'd do it.
Parent
Re:This is how we negotiate (Score:4, Funny)
Grammar advice is best dispensed from a house with sturdy brick walls.
Parent
Re:Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Anal rape in every box.
Where can I get one for my ex?
Parent
Re:Why do these idiots keep buying iPods (Score:4, Insightful)
"Seriously, there's no "Linux compatible" label on their products, so why the fuck would they buy it and THEN complain?"
There's no linux compatible sticker on anything much.
An iPod without the managing capacities of iTunes makes no sense.
Only if you're an idiot. Some of us can use these things called file systems to hold and manipulate files. They've been around a while, surprised you've never heard of them.
They should be buying a mass-storage MP3 player which requires no special software.
Like an iPod? They don't require special software, Apple just deliberately make it difficult to use with other software.
In conclusion, fuck off retard.
Parent
Re:Why do these idiots keep buying iPods (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it's a civil rights issue.
If I buy a product, I should get to use it any way that I like that is not a genuine patent or copyright infringement.
IOW: If Apple can't proceed here without using/abusing the DMCA then they really shouldn't have any standing.
Reverse engineering and discussing reverse engineering should be speech protected not
just as a civil right but protected as being consistent with the copyright clause of
the US Constitution.
Copyright is meant as a means to SPREAD INFORMATION.
Too many people tend to forget that.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody's violating your civil rights by offering you a product that requires special software.
That depends.
they're not violating your rights by not providing it for your platform of choice, or where it genuinely requires special software.
They ARE violating your civil rights by stopping you even talking about creating other software.
This is not "OMFG! Apple don't support linux! OMFG!", it's "A corporate behemoth is shutting down forums that talk about making other ways to interface with products we have lega
Re:Why do these idiots keep buying iPods (Score:5, Insightful)
Learn to comprehend what's going on. They're not saying it's Apple's fault for not making the iPod compatible, they're saying Apple can't attempt to stop them from doing that work themselves.
It's entirely reasonable for Apple to say "We're not going to support that", but when they say "We're not going to support that and we'll sue you if you try to make it work", we have a fucking problem.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
DRM and DMCA, baby.
Don't you love the USA?
"Because it's there" (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do geeks buy XBoxes and try to turn them into Linux PC's or media devices? Why do people jailbreak smart phones? It's because geeks are geeks, and the challenge is fun. As George Mallory would say, it's because they're THERE.
Secondly, even on a more practical note, the iPod is just a nice piece of hardware. I've dropped mine a thousand times and abused it repeatedly (err, non-sexually!)... and you just can't break the thing. I simply haven't found that kind of quality in competing devices, and I am certainly NOT an Apple fanboy by any stretch.
I put the RockBox operating system [rockbox.org] on my iPod (which still leaves you the ability to dual-boot into Apple's OS if you need to)... and now my iPod functions as a typical mass-storage player. I don't need iTunes, can just copy music files on and off like a USB stick, and have support for any format I'd want (e.g. OGG, Flac, etc). Combine that with the sheer quality of the hardware (my iPod has lasted three times longer than any previous player I've had), and I'm a happy geek. If other people want to port other OS's to the device, then that's awesome and more power to them.
Parent
Re:"Because it's there" (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Why does everyone always side with the little g (Score:3, Informative)
Actually the newer songs don't have DRM at all. Of course you're right about older songs that are still encrypted with Fairplay.
The thing is, it's not about the music files anyway. DRM'ed or not, you can move the file around. The problem seems to be the files database itself that's been encrypted.
Reminds me of the old Tengen vs Nintendo case. If I remember corretly, they lost in the USA but won in Canada.