Blogosphere,  Law

Apple v. Does Confidential Sources in the Blogopshere Watch: Bloggers WIN

The Southern California Law Blog: Bloggers Win, Apple Loses in California Decision Over First Amendment Rights

Today, the California Court of Appeal issued its opinion overturning the trial court’s discovery orders obtained by Apple against a blogger. The EFF described the lawsuit by Apple as follows:

In December 2004, Apple filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara county against unnamed individuals who allegedly leaked information about new Apple products to several online news sites, including AppleInsider and PowerPage. The articles at issue concerned a FireWire audio interface for GarageBand, codenamed “Asteroid” or “Q7.” In addition, Apple filed a separate trade secret suit against Think Secret on January 4, 2004.

Apple is seeking information from these news sites regarding the identities of the sites’ sources, and has subpoenaed Nfox.com, the email service provider for PowerPage, for email messages that may identify the confidential source.

The Bear Flag League in 2005 filed an amicus brief in support of Jackson O’Grady.

The brief is here.

Congratulations to Justene Adamec and Jeff Lewis, attorneys extraordinaire, who represented the Bear Flag League and the Blogosphere so well.

The decision is here.

The EFF has a webpage summarizing the lawsuit with links to all the legal documents here.

Flap’s blogpost from June 4, 2005: Apple v. Does: Confidential Sources in the Blogosphere.

May It Please the Court represented the Bear Flag League in oral argument. You can read his first hand account here.

Blogosphere/MSM:

Instapundit

Right on the Left Beach: Bear Flag League Scores an Assist

Bag and Baggage: Apple v. Does Decision Issued

If Apple opts to seek review by the California Supreme Court, its petition should be due the first week of July (I get July 5). Review is rarely granted, generally only when necessary “to secure uniformity of decision or to settle an important question of law.” (CRC 28(b)) This strikes me as a well-reasoned and thorough decision, and one where securing review poses a significant challenge.

Though the media coverage of the opinion is bound to focus on the shield law and constitutional protections here extended to online journalists, in this era of ubiquitous use of email services originating with third parties the portions of the decision applying the Stored Communications Act might well have even broader impact.

Red Herring

Techdirt

Slashdot

internetnews.com

Macworld

Mercury News

AP

Previous:

Apple v. Does: Confidential Sources in the Blogosphere
Judge: Apple can pursue fan site sources
Bloggers Speak up about the Apple Case


Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,