The Channel Wire
April 28, 2009
Sour Apple: EFF, Wiki Site Sue Over Copyright Claim
Whose software is it anyway? Tired of what it calls Apple's "bogus" legal threats, The Electronic Frontier Foundation and OdioWorks Monday filed suit against Apple, claiming that the company is trying to suppress discussions about iPods and iPhones software on a hobbyist Wiki site.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, alleges that Apple made legal threats against OdioWorks, the owner of the BlueWiki site, after its users talked about making some iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than Apple's own iTunes.
Last year Apple lawyers "demanded" that BlueWiki take down three sites created by Apple enthusiasts: Ipodhash, iTunesDB and IPodHash _ test_data _contribution, according to the suit. Apple claimed that the software violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that guards against copyright infringement. The software, however, actually never succeeded in jail-breaking the iPhone or iPod.
The suit also pointed out that in addition to Apple's iTunes software, there are several third-party media management software products, such as Songbird, Rockbox, Banshee and Winamp, that can write to the iTunesDB file to sync media files.
OdioWorks said that it complied with Apple's request, fearing legal action. But now it wants to be able revive the discussion on its Wiki site.
"Apple's legal threats against BlueWiki are about censorship, not about protecting their legitimate copyright interests," said EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann, in a statement." 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."
Posted by Michele Masterson at 10:30 AM
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sour Apple: EFF, Wiki Site Sue Over Copyright Claim - The Channel Wire - IT Channel News And Views by CRN and VARBusiness
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