AfterDawn: News

EFF files lawsuit against Apple

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had teamed with OdioWorks lawyers to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc. in a federal court, claiming the company has stifling free speech by bullying OdioWorks into pulling content that shows how to use an iPod with stores other than iTunes. "I take the free speech rights of BluWiki users seriously," said OdioWorks owner Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks.

He continued: "Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions." The problem Apple had was with the BluWiki site, which contained information on using the company's iPhone and iPod products with stores other than iTunes.



BluWiki users edited it themselevs, sharing insights on reverse engineering Apple software to "manage their media with whatever program they chose." However, late last year, the BluWiki site was shut down after Apple lawyers threatened to sue for spreading word of how to circumvent its digital rights management technology.

"Apple's legal threats against BluWiki are about censorship, not about protecting their legitimate copyright interests," said EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann. "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."

The lawsuit requests that the court declare that BluWiki is doing nothing wrong and to force Apple to back off.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 28 Apr 2009 21:04

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• 3 comments

• 5fdpfan

  And if Apple thinks that by doing this, they're gonna stop people from doing this stuff then they're delusional. For example, you could use a program called Yampod not only to rip your songs and photos from an Ipod back to your computer, but manage your libraries as well. You gonna sue me for saying that too Apple? Bite me! I and anyone else with a want and willingnees to lookup how, will use something other then Itunes if they so well plese and there's not a darn thing you can do about it. I mean, what difference does it really make anyway if people use your Itunes software or something else? That doesn't necessarily mean we are acutally buying anything from the Itunes store to put on thee device. Perhaps with the Iphone(I don't know cause I don't own one)Apple can force people to use it, what with all the filmware updates that are released and such. But as far as Ipods are concerned, Itunes is not mandatory. Haha!

  28.4.2009 21:39 #1

• dgun

  This is so typical for the boycotting nature of apple, and the reason why I never plan to buy an ipod. The very fact that you MUST use their charging and connection base, you MUST only use mp3 files, you MUST use itunes to let their product to work. It is interesting because somewhere on the order of 90% of all programs available simply don't work for apple, and an increasing number of websites don't either.
  Microsoft is doing something similar with vista, though it looks nice, it is moving in the direction of restricting what software works with the OS as what Mac has done, and don't even get me started on the Zune. Don't anyone buy the Zune, it's basically like a worse copy of the Ipod, where the itunes playlist is worthless.

  29.4.2009 01:27 #2

• Hyasuma

  I find it funny that apple can sue ppl for what ppl really wants. Sorry Apple, I like your ideas and products, but I just can't help myself for unlocking or jail-breaking them. Because you jack off our money, and we should do whatever we want with it, i don't care if i use other program than itune, i don't care about the new update for the iphone how it makes the battery runs better, i do whatever i want with it because "I LIKE IT MY WAY" not your way.

  29.4.2009 17:06 #3