Apple rumor site closed after settlement
Apple on Thursday put to rest the last of a series of lawsuits it brought in a losing and costly effort to put a stop to Web leaks about its product plans. The suits raised questions about whether independent Web publishers should be accorded the same legal protections as traditional journalists. They were aimed at the gaggle of Apple enthusiasts who have made both a sport and a business out of pre-empting Steven P. Jobs’s big product announcements. Nicholas M. Ciarelli, who operated a Web site for Apple rumors called Think Secret, was sued by Apple for publishing trade secrets in January 2005. In a brief statement Thursday on his site, Mr. Ciarelli said that he had reached a settlement with Apple and that he would stop publishing Think Secret.
Mr. Ciarelli, a senior at Harvard, would not comment on whether Apple had given him money to persuade him to cease publishing. But he said he was pleased with the outcome of the negotiations. Mr. Ciarelli filed a countermotion against Apple in March 2005 under a California provision that makes litigants vulnerable to financial damages if they sue over what is determined to be constitutionally protected speech. Apple lost the two other suits on appeal after a higher court ruled that the Web site operators were journalists and entitled to First Amendment protections. The court forced Apple to pay $700,000 in legal fees to the sites. It looks that knowing some secrets can generate you a nice bunch of money if you know how to monetize it…
Source: NY Times
Comments(18)
nice news!
hahahah 1st
Martin: BANNED (69.153.50.36)
$700,000! Wow. Can’t imagine being able to pay anything like that in the first place. I wonder how much the settlement was.
sux
Martin: BANNED
They had it coming.
-Unbreakable /Bmore
It looks that not knowing proper English and running a scene release blog can generate you a nice amount of money if you know how to monetize it… How much money are you making from the ads on this site Martin?
It’s OK, I’m not mad at you. I make money from ads too. We gotta eat, right?
yes finally a ban of these fools.
ok. great news item.
hope it does not evolve into a childish apple vs microsoft debate like always.
good to see sense prevailed. Apple shouldn’t have sued first off.
why did i get baned just cause it sucked they’re closing, they should of lower the rate of the money
Sounds like Steven P. just wants the glory of announcing apples new products before anyone else can…what a baby.
steve jobs isn’t so nice like people say…
basically, TS didn’t want to give up it’s main source who some think was an upper level Apple employee so Nicholas decided to shut the site down instead.
“Apple lost the two other suits on appeal after a higher court ruled that the Web site operators were journalists and entitled to First Amendment protections.”
this part seems worth looking into
@6
Perhaps, but there are better ways of doing things than banning IPs. Remember, most IPs are shared.
The offender just reconnects to the net and is back again.
Some innocent gets that IP and can’t access the site.
I understand the concern (or rather, RLSLog’s *sponsors’* concerns) but painting with a wide brush rarely paints the picture you want people to see.
Starting to feel a bit stuffy in here. Think about it. Or ban me if you like.
An afterthought – why not use a bit of technology to solve the problem?
Make this a membership-only site, like *gasp* every other forum out there.
Problem solved – you ban accounts, not IPs.
An easy fix with a bit of planning. Just a thought.
or….. (yes another afterthought)
Use a more complicated spam protection, like a proper Turing test. Something that takes a bit longer to pass.
Then people who just go “first” or whatever are less likely to bother. People with something to say or ask will make the effort.
Who knows, might work.. worth a try rather than banning IPs which is ridiculous.
A membership site wouldn’t work, the amount of views would drop immensely unless only members could post comments. However, you would get very few comments.
If nothing else find a way to only ban people from the comments area. If my IP was banned by someone else I’d be unhappy. But I can do without commenting because I really just love the site for the information.
There should be a RLSLOG lite too. I dont know what that would be but I’m all for more RLSLOG.