No Rights to Trade Secrets
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"...an interested public is not the same as the public interest."
Last week I mentioned that there was some debate over bloggers being journalists, brought to my eye by the lawsuit by Apple to get a few sites to turn over their sources for leaks about new Apple products.
They were ordered to do so, but the EFF filed an appeal to get online journalism the same protections as print journalism (and other media types). On Friday, a judge in Santa Clara rejected the appeal with the above quote. He noted that there were trade secrets involved and possibly a crime committed in obtaining these secrets. The first amendment rights of the press cannot be used in the case of criminal actions.
I've been following this because of the possible implications for me. I blog online (mostly nonsensical things about my family), but I also write here. And I note things, like the possible ship dates of Yukon, that could be considered trade secrets. And I get emails sometimes about the speculation that may or may not be inside information. Sometimes I know it is, sometimes not, but in either case, having some first amendment protection is something I look forward to. Betraying a trust is not.
The judge in this case neatly sidestepped the issue of online v offline journalism. He also didn't decide whether Apple has a case on suing the sites, but I don't care about that. What I'm more interested in whether someone considers blogging, or even online editorials like this one, to be journalism.
It will be interesting to see if this one gets decided. I'm not sure if Apple would continue to the Supreme Court, but I bet the EFF will. However I'm not sure they'd rule any different than the lower case because of the trade secret issue. I do hope that some sort of case for online journalism, or more specifically blogging, is tested soon that we know where we stand.
I just hope it's not with me 🙂
Steve Jones
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Steve,
You have articles published weekly in a well-respected website, and you write a editorial nearly every day that goes out to (hundreds?...thousands?) of people. If this isn't a journalist I don't know what is...it's certainly wrong to think that you can only be a journalist if you are published on PAPER. Certainly from my point of view you are a journalist.
Check out this Non Sequitur joke:
http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/2005/03/07/
Dinosaur blogs...that's funny stuff.
Signature is NULL
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nice, that was funny. Glad you think that we're well respected
, not sure everyone agrees, but we're glad there's a few.I definitely consider myself some sort of journalist. I just hope I never have to see if the courts do
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Steve,
I was watching the news the other day and was suprised to see that the White House has given a young man a press credential for his blog site. They have "officially" recognized his blog site as journalism.
And yes, there are quite a few of us that do respect the articles posted on this site. Keep up the great work.
Darrell
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Yeah, but the media itself did an expose on him saying he was a White House friendly reporter with no right to be there. The media wants him gone.
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Of course the media wants him gone! News published by consumers for consumers directly threatens the centralized (hierarchal) model the media depends on to make a profit. Now is not the place to debate whether the US media is "White House friendly" or not, but I'm sure that's not the issue.
Anybody read "Snowcrash"? Remember the guys running around with video gear, wired to the net 24/7, looking for news? Emergent technologies are threatening a lot of the traditional institutions; the media is correct to be scared right now. I'm fully expecting RIAA/MPAA style bills and lawsuits trying to quash these blog upstarts. Unfortunately for them there's this little thing called the Constitution...
cl
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