Details of Asteroid, a music device, were leaked two
years ago by PowerPage.org and other blogs. The blog owners say
they are journalists and should be protected from revealing their
confidential sources.
ZD Net reports that, on Thursday, Presiding Justice Conrad
Rushing questioned whether the leaked information even amounted to
a trade secret. "You don't really claim this is a new technology?,"
he asked. "This is plugging a guitar into a computer."
But Apple's lawyer characterised the leak as "a very serious
theft".
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is representing the online
journalists. It contends that Apple has no right to force the
bloggers to reveal their sources.
Apple has sued several unnamed individuals, called "Does" (as in
"John Doe" and "Jane Doe"), for allegedly leaking the information.
According to the EFF, as part of the lawsuit, Apple has subpoenaed
Nfox, the ISP for PowerPage publisher Jason O'Grady, demanding that
the ISP turn over the communications and unpublished materials
O'Grady obtained while he was gathering information for his
articles. Apple was also granted permission to issue subpoenas
directly to PowerPage and AppleInsider for similar information.
A trial court ruled last year that if a journalist publishes
information that a business claims to be a trade secret, this act
destroys constitutional protection for the journalist's
confidential sources and unpublished materials.
EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl told the court on Thursday that
the subpoena to Nfox violated the federal Stored Communications
Act, which prohibits direct subpoenas of email communications held
by email service providers. Opsahl also argued that O'Grady and
other journalists are entitled to protect their confidential source
information under both the California constitution and the US
constitution.
A ruling is expected within 90 days.
