Apple v. Does Confidential Sources in the Blogopshere Watch: Bloggers WIN – Redux – Bloggers are Journalists
Hugh Hewitt: Bloggers are Journalists (at least in California).
For your convenience, a long excerpt from the opinion from California’s Sixth Appellate Court in O’Grady v. The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, holding that bloggers and their blogs are covered by California’s Reporter’s Shield Law:
Thanks to Hugh for bringing this to the forefront again.
But, thanks to the efforts of the Bear Flag League on May 26th California Bloggers officially became journalists.
Flap reprints his post of this day: 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.
Congratulations to Justene Adamec and Jeff Lewis, attorneys extraordinaire, who represented the Bear Flag League and the Blogosphere so well.
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:
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.
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Apple v. Does: Confidential Sources in the Blogosphere
Judge: Apple can pursue fan site sources
Bloggers Speak up about the Apple Case
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