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The Courts Education Apple

Steve Wozniak Faces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over Branded Tech School (gizmodo.com) 93

Posted by EditorDavid from the iSue dept.
A user quotes Gizmodo: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is facing a million-dollar lawsuit for allegedly stealing the idea to create a Woz-branded tech school, according to a weekend Insider report.

Connecticut business professor Ralph Reilly claims he and Wozniak agreed to establish a "tech university" and sealed the deal with an on-camera handshake in 2011. The educational platform, which was aimed at teaching adults computer and other technical skills, would lean heavily on Wozniak's name and reputation as a key engineering force in Apple's early days for branding purposes. However, the partnership never got off the ground, Reilly said in court filings reviewed by Gizmodo and Insider. Wozniak went on to launch virtually the same idea under the name Woz U in 2017 after partnering with the code-learning firm Coder Camps. In response, Reilly reached out to Wozniak via email asking to be a part of the venture, according to court filings. "It's exactly what I envisioned for Woz Institute of Technology when I first approached you with the idea," Reilly wrote at the time.

"You are right on the mark," Wozniak responded. "You had the right idea... I doubt it would have happened without your initial idea!"

But when Reilly pushed back asking for partial ownership in the project, he was met with radio silence. Reilly went on sue Wozniak for alleged intellectual property theft and copyright infringement. He's seeking at least $1 million in relief and damages. Other accusations Reilly's brought against Wozniak such as breach of contract have already been dismissed by a judge...

For his part, Wozniak's team claims the two never reached a real deal on the proposal and the aforementioned on-camera handshake was just one of countless photo-ops he regularly conducts with fans.
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Steve Wozniak Faces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over Branded Tech School More

Steve Wozniak Faces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over Branded Tech School

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  • Undsoweiter? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zephvark ( 1812804 ) on Sunday May 23, 2021 @08:50PM (#61414628)

    I don't know anything about this case. I might note that Jobs used to stiff Woz on a regular basis (and about everyone else). When Apple went public, Jobs refused to grant stocks to the Apple employees. Woz took his own personal stocks and shared them around.

    Woz seems to have excellent moral character or, did at the time. I don't think he has any interest in being less than decent.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • A novel that is full of ideas, setting, characters, and the author's expression.

    What exactly does a vague business plan express that can be copyrighted? At least Amazon's 1-click patent went to the effort to demonstrate a process and patent it, as looney at that abuse of IP law was.

    Honestly I don't recommend sharing your business ideas with anyone unless:
    1. you have something that no body else can easily reproduce. like business contacts, creativity, or an actual fucking business.
    2. you intend to follow through with the idea before the rest of the world gives up and moves on without you.

    As a long time member of the club known as talking shit while drinking at the pub. I can tell you that business ideas are on average not even worth the price of a drink.

    • Yeah, this whole thing is bunk.

      It's not a business plan. It's an idea. I can write a book about a school for wizards and not be sued for breaching the Harry Potter copyright. Or the Worst Witch copyright. Probably a bunch of books with the same theme that predate that as well.

      If it is a whole business plan, business plans can't be copyrighted. They're stolen and recycled all the time. He might have had a case for breach of contract if there was anything resembling a contract, but evidently not, because

      • J. K. Rowling ripped off the hidden world themes of John Bellairs (The House with a Clock in Its Walls), the hero's rise and story structure of Lloyd Alexander (Prydain Chronicles), and the zany academic institution of Terry Pratchett (Discworld). The latter probably a parody of Tom Brown's Schooldays among others of the genre.

        To be fair, fantasy authors all influence one another. Almost none of it is created in a vacuum and you can watch various fads rise and fall through the decades to a degree that you c

  • Not much of a case (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcle ( 1575627 ) on Sunday May 23, 2021 @09:14PM (#61414694)

    So, a guy approaches a famous man with an idea to start a school using the famous man's reputation. Famous man is interested at first, then decides against it.
    Later on, famous man starts his own school together with someone else.
    So, does original guy somehow "own" the idea? Without famous man, there would be no business potential. At most, original guy had the first idea of milking famous man's reputation. But the reputation, which is the only thing of worth here, belongs to the famous man, not the original guy who thought he wanted to milk it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by trawg ( 308495 )

      I would also note Woz actually went ahead and /did/ it. Anyone can have an idea, but actually executing on it is a different thing. I know nothing about Woz U or how well it has done; a reputation like his would certainly help but at the end of the day, he had to get out of bed and go Do Stuff to make it happen.

    • Handshake deals are bullsh*t. Show me the document that proves that the two decided to do this together.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Something Stinks Here (Score:3)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Sunday May 23, 2021 @09:19PM (#61414708) Homepage Journal

    This whole story smells of bullshit.

    Why would Woz say in email that Woz U wouldn't have happened without this guy's idea and then claim he's a random fan? I know Woz got knocked in the noodle but this is too much. Are the email headers authenticated?

    Why would Woz say he has practically zero input into Woz U? That seems like setting up future fraud claims.

    Too many alarm bells for this story to be the full and real version of events.

    • My feeling is that Woz wanted his fan to have a cool story to tell his friends, and just didn't consider that he might get sued.

    • Re:Something Stinks Here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Sunday May 23, 2021 @10:33PM (#61414862) Journal

      It sounds like he had a beer or something with Woz at a convention years back. The email sounded like a kindly reply to fanmail: Why yes, you are important. Thank you for your support. I couldn't have done it without you.

      I doubt he thought to check with a lawyer on the wording of the email, if they were never actually in business together. Maybe that's an indiscretion when you've got that much money. Barring something of great substance that's yet to be revealed, I'm guessing his lawyer will get it taken care of with little more than a brief appearance on Woz's part.

      The dude who filed the suit probably saw this email and thought "lottery ticket". Not expecting to win, but willing to play. With how many courts operate, the odds actually might not be that bad.

      • It's like when Barry Bonds tells the 3rd base coach "I couldn't have done it without you". Of course he can do it without you, he's Barry Bonds and you're a fucking 3rd base coach.

  • Connecticut business professor Ralph Reilly

    Reilly went on sue Wozniak for alleged intellectual property theft and copyright infringement.

    Is this what Reilly is suing for, or a paraphrase by the journalist? Because there is no "copyright" merely for an idea of a school, and using Woz's name would only be "alleged intellectual property theft" if it was already a registered trademark owned by Reilly.

    Either this business professor doesn't know IP law, or the journalist is reporting it wrong.

  • And he shakes on it with his buddy. Stoner goes back to getting high and years later his buddy goes on to make the app. Stoner finds out and proceeds to sue for 1 million dollars.

  • A vague idea for starting a school (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday May 23, 2021 @09:57PM (#61414810)
    Is not copyrightable or patentable. This is just him hoping that Wozniak will settle on a court rather than spend the money on litigation. It's a nuisance lawsuit.

  • I would expect a Statute of Frauds class of law to apply. (They amount to laws that say "A verbal contract for one of THESE sorts of thing (e.g. more than $x, takes more than a year, etc.) is unenforcable (i.e. "only worth the paper it's (not) written on" B-) )"

    IANAL and my understanding of the ins and outs of that class of laws is sketchy. But the US and the states have a number of variants of this, inherited from British Common Law, included in the Uniform Commercial Code, regulations, state laws, etc.

  • Someone is very confused about the difference between copyright, trademark, and patents. Ideas are neither copyrightable nor trademarkable. They are patentable, but if Reilly didn't patent it, or get Woz to sign an agreement, he has no case. (I am not a lawyer.)

    • Re:Copyright? (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @12:16AM (#61415002)
      Ideas aren't patentable either. They need to pass a few tests, such as novelty, or includes an inventive step, and generally specify some way of actually applying it.

      As insane as IP laws can be (such as lumping them all together in the first place), merely having an idea is not protectable, since even the most pro-patent judge should understand any idiot can have an idea.
    • The copyright infringement is for a website. The court will probably have to decide whether the later Woz U copied the professor's website illegally. The name is obviously a trademark issue, but there's also something here about a contract, so it's not just an IP case either.

  • Can we please just put stories like this to rest until someone bothers enough to find a link to the court documents?

  • He should have named his school: "U Woz m8?"
  • Base a business simply on a celebrity name factor, like its solid gold.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Base a business simply on a celebrity name factor, like its solid gold.

      You give America too much credit. Businesses based on what is what is known as a rock star today even if it's the Woz dates back past Roman times. They used to sell Gladiator sweat and so on. Here is Emperor Vistavian's sword. So if anything, it's European bullshit. It still sells.

      • no, you fail to understand the concept of relativeness against absolutist numbers. Sure there were a few rock stars back in Rome, but America pop culture has the rock star as its principal factor. Im not talking about whether it has happened before, im talking about how deep rock star culture is a part of so much of american business and culture.

  • Nothing special here just (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday May 24, 2021 @07:04AM (#61415610)
    your typical contract dispute. Something for the courts to work out. Remember in today's legal system money usually wins. So Woz is probably going to be OK

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