Apple Faces Lawsuits Aplenty

The legal teams representing Apple certainly have their plates full at this time. Apple is facing a number of legal matters concerning leaks of privileged information, patent infringement, and those of an intellectual property manner. Concerning the leaks, by now, many are aware of Apple's lawsuits aimed at a number of blogs that cover the Mac industry. The owner of the Apple news site ThinkSecret was Mac mini and the iPod Shuffle. The lawsuit, while seeking no damages, is asking the owner to release the source of the leak. This request has, of course, made many people wary of the site's first amendment rights, as well as whether or not bloggers should be considered journalists. Many bloggers championed the perceived rights of ThinkSecret and its owners. One such blogger, Randall Newton, seemed to sum up the blogosphere stance with this statement appearing on his The other lawsuit facing Apple concerns the company's approach to digital rights management. A Hong-Kong based company called Pat-rights has issued a demand for 12% of Apple's revenue from their iTunes music service. iTunes makes use of Fairplay to protect the rights of its music inventory, but they have not patented the technology responsible. Because of this, Pat-rights feels Apple must be using their software to protect its digital music. It certainly sounds like Apple's busy start to 2005 is going to remain that way, if not more so. Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for latest search news