Apple Sued By Site Claiming Violation Of Web Free Speech
Posted on: Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 13:30 CDT
Internet rights activists have blamed Apple of repressing free speech by pressuring OdioWorks into stopping online directions of ways to sync iPods with music websites other than iTunes.
Lawyers from nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) partnered with OdioWorks lawyers to file a federal lawsuit against computer giant Apple.
The center of the debate is that the BluWiki website outlines ways to allow Apple's iPhones and iPods to share music and video files with sites other than iTunes, like Songbird, Banshee, Rockbox, and Winamp.
BluWiki is run as a "public service" style site where those who go to it have the ability to edit or change content on web pages in wiki-style format, states OdioWorks, which operates the website.
"Hobbyists" at BluWiki reviewed ways to reverse-engineer Apple software, allowing iPod and iPhone owners to "manage their media with whatever program they chose," the lawsuit outlines.
BluWiki ended the round-table in 2008 after Apple lawyers threatened to take legal action against OdioWorks for publishing ways of how to avoid their digital rights.
Apple fervently guards iTunes' elite content and management tool for iPod and iPhone hardware.
"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."
Apple had no comment.
The lawsuit requests that the court finds that BluWiki is not breaking the law by merely hosting discussion of how to allow iPhones and iPods to operate with websites other than iTunes.
"I take the free speech rights of BluWiki users seriously," said OdioWorks owner Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks.
"Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions."
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (1)
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Posted by Rickardo Montel on 04/29/2009, 17:05 The sooner the EFF is destroyed the better. They have simply gone too far this time. You do not attack a great company like Apple, EVER. |
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