Court rules against Apple, for bloggers

"saying that bloggers and online journalists should be afforded the same Constitutional and state law protections"

Ok... yeah but do those protections actually apply in this case?

The lower court said those protections don't apply because of the nature of the information released not because of them being a blogger... at least I believe that was the gist of lower court ruling.

Personally talk about opening this can o' worms from the wrong end...

I don't see why this allows someone to violate non-disclosure agreements. The same principle is involved in Bush exposing the identity of a CIA agent, this should not be protected by the right to free speech. You should not be allowed to violate contracts just to make more money. What would really promote free speech would be giving equal air time on TV to people of all opinions not just Republicans and Democrats.

There seems to be two principles at odds here .. like most legal questions... the legality of NDA's and the legality of the media to report on info that may or may not be NDA's.

The rights of whistleblowers need to be protected, but the criminal behavior of corporate espionage needs to be prosecutable. My understanding is that Apple stills has the right to prosecute employees or NDA persons as much as they need to but they can't break the 1st Amendment or force journalists to do so.

The law is a bit ambiguous, as we see in the national scene with the Bush admin., but that is what the courts are supposed to work out in a case by case manner. With national security or violent criminal behavior the bar is lower at investigating the sources, but with corporate secrets and less criminal leaks, the bar is higher since freedom of the press and the need to reveal corruption in corporations (tobacco corps) and government (Delay and friends) is of greater civil importance.

The law was never meant to be "one size fits all" and I think Apple did overstep its legal rights to force disclosures for the relatively benign release of rumored information. You or I may not agree that it was benign, but the court seems to have done so.

One legal strategy did not succeed. Do not accept defeat. Regroup and find a better way to protect Apple's trade secrets. Non disclosure agreements mean what they say.

I wonder if Apple will appeal. IANAL but after reading various things after the original decision I think the first judge was right and the court of appeals was wrong. Oh well, that is what you get for being headquartered in loony-bin USA, aka California.

Apple appeals this. I haver nothing against free speech but an NDA is an NDA and they pretty much spell out what you can and cannot do or say.

I can reveal any secrets I want? What incentive remains for creating new products if some joe blow with a blog can leak information about it before it even hits the market?

I want to be able to get and report anything to anyone so I wil start a blog. First I'll find the location of undercover FBI agents and DEA agents and tell the drug dealers where their families live. Next I'll get the source code for Microsoft Word and post it on my site, then I'll get some top secret nuclear weapons plans and post them. I am am journalist...everything is fair game for me to report.

Jason O'Grady is not the one bound by the NDA. He has every right to report what he wants. Apples needs to investigate who is actually leaking the information. Not go after the little guy who is just doing his job and may (or may not) be aware that the project he is reporting on is secret.

Jason OGrady knew quite well that something stamped "Apple Confidential' might be a trade secret. He chose to publish it anyway.

To me, this is not 'his job', it is corporate espionage.

Don't get me wrong - if he had evidence of corporate misconduct, or misallocated funds, or perhaps an indicator that the health of the company was not as represented in public statements, then I would have no problem with him posting it. I would probably even accept the same arguments for a software project going out of control, or not working.

This does not apply to trade secrets, without some public interest argument, and I did not see one here.

Scott