Apple lost in its effort to have bloggers disclose sources. The nature of the ruling leaves it wide open to appeal, moreover, it miscategorized bloggers as journalists. There are journalistic sites posing as blogs, and using blog technology to power their presence. Then there are bloggers – Citizen Journalists as Dan once called them. And in this is the rub, citizens are subject to a different standard than the media. Like it or not, we are. Thats the law. I doubt this ruling will last long.
Andrew over at The Reg summarized some of the rulings more bizzare elements:
However Apple has struck gold in finding a techno utopian in a state of raptue. Judge Rushing cites Wikipedia as a source, a mistake which earns students an ‘F’ grade today. He talks about the need to disregard economics and sociology in favor of a “memetic marketplace”, and allows himself some flights of technological rapture.
“While it may be tempting to think of Asteroid as a mere gizmo for nerds,” he writes, “such a device may also be the means by which the next Bob Dylan, Julia Ward Howe, or Chuck D conveys his or her message to the larger world. Music is of course a form of speech, from the stirring hymns of Charles Wesley to the soaring meditations of John Coltrane.
This ruling does a diservice to the rights of companies to protect their intellectual assets, and the responsibility we have as citizens to respect privacy and intellectual property. And, by blurring the lines, it potentially weakens the media’s rights.
Here is the full ruling. And The Merc…
