Apple Withdraws Legal Threat Over BluWiki iPodhash Site
Apple Inc. has withdrawn a legal threat concerning a BluWiki website that discusses how users might use non-Apple media software with an iPod or iPhone, rather than iTunes.
But it’s not the First Amendment victory for which advocates of freedom of information on the Internet would have wished, reports Ars Technica.
In its July 8 letter to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing BluWiki’s operator, OdioWorks, in the case, the company says “Apple has stopped utilizing the code in question, rendering the code obsolete for the purposes at issue in this action. Publishing that code is no longer of any harm or benefit to anyone. Given this change of circumstances, Apple no longer has, nor it will have in the future, any objection to the publication of the iTunes DB Pages.”
A copy of the letter (PDF) is provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Fred von Lohmann, the EFF senior staff attorney to whom the letter is addressed, says the third-party content on BluWiki’s iPodhash site, in which hobbyists discuss the potential use of non-Apple software on iPods and iPhones, is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment, according to the Digits blog of the Wall Street Journal.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment when contacted by the newspaper. The company had initially claimed that the discussion on the BluWiki site infringed its copyright and violated the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Litigation resulted when the EFF sought a declaratory judgment in federal court in San Francisco on BluWiki’s behalf that there was no copyright violation.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Web Advocacy Group & BluWiki Sue Apple Over Chat Board Shutdown Demand”
