Apple is a phony
By James Cornelius
Apple is up to its old tricks. This time it successfully harassed an Australian journalist and his publisher into deleting a generally positive article about OS X Leopard entitled “Ten things you didn’t know about Leopard”.
Yes, that’s right, it was a positive article that talked about some of the good features coming up in Leopard.
Danny Gorog’s crime is that he included screen shots of OS X Leopard in in his article. Apple sent his publisher, apcmag.com, a nasty letter demanding that the article be removed on the basis that Leopard had “been distributed to developers under strict terms of confidentiality” and “copyright law specifically prohibits unauthorized distribution and displays of copyrighted works”.
Initially apcmag.com removed just the images. However, Apple was not satisfied with this and demanded that whole article be removed. apcmag.com capitulated not wanting to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees in a foreign country (apcmag.com is based in Australia).
“APC complied with Apple’s demands because we didn’t want to waste money defending a lawsuit originating in the United States, which could potentially cost a fortune,” wrote Dan Warne online editor at apcmag.com.
“Apple knows that, which is why it can get away with making these kinds of demands to media around the world all the time.”
Warne’s conclusion is that Apple’s motivation is very simple:
“Clearly, the message is: to find out more about Mac OS X, go to Apple’s website, where you can read about it in gushing, uncritical, Apple marketing speak,” he wrote.
Back in January Apple hassled bloggers who posted screenshots of iPhone “skins” for Windows and Palm-based cell phones. And back in 2004 Apple sued three bloggers who had, Apple claims, revealed trade secrets.
While on one hand, I do understand that Apple is trying to protect its intellectual property, I can’t help thinking that it’s going a little too far.
Trying to scare the media and bloggers into toeing the official line makes Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial, which likening PC users to bald human drones living in a totalitarian state, very ironic.
But there’s also a big danger for Apple that it’s hard-edged approach to PR will undermine everything that the Apple’s brand represents.
People will notice that the gap between Apple’s warm and fuzzy, albeit highly contrived, public face, and the way it does business, is getting bigger and bigger. The public will realize that Apple is no more special, than say Microsoft, or Dell, or any other company that makes consumer goods. And that’s when Apple will loose its magic.
In my opinion while Apple might create cool products, the company itself if far from cool. It’s actually petty and mean spirited.
As Jerry Seinfeld’s weaselly friend Mike might say: “Apple is a phony”.
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Entry was posted
on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
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Read more entries by James Cornelius.
Stumble It!
July 12th, 2007
You can read the original story, it’s still on the Google cache:
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:UmDz-N8S0REJ:apcmag.com/6595/
I love Google cache!
July 13th, 2007
Do you know what a Non Disclosure Agreement is? Do you understand what it means when you sign or agree to one? It means you cannot share, verbally or through images any confidential information that is shared with you. It is that- CONFIDENTIAL and not for public release.
July 14th, 2007
Apple has a right to their own creations. Its that simple. How is it you think you suddenly have a right to do what you want with someone else’s property? Apple sets their own terms, regardless if its a “good or bad” review you are missing the point entirely.