In the good old days Apple was seen as the
champion of free speech and computer of choice for a generation of writers. Now
it seems that it is keen on using its army of lawyers to get people it does not
like to shut up.
Human rights group the Electronic Frontier
Foundation is helping the operator of a wiki site sue Jobs' Mob over legal
threats Apple made to stifle discussion of iTunes workarounds. OdioWorks, runs a Web site called Bluwiki and it
has sued Apple in hopes of securing a legal ruling that would allow it to host
discussions regarding the use of alternative music software to manage an iPod or
iPhone.
Apple sent OdioWorks a cease-and-desist letter
invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act after Bluwiki users began
discussing software to sync music or videos to iPods or iPhones from sources
other than iTunes. OdioWorks complied with the request to remove the
discussions, however it wants a ruling that says that the law does not cover
those sorts of chats and Apple was wrong trying to bully it into silence.