BluWiki operator takes Apple to court over DMCA claim

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 28 April 2009 09:43

Business IT - Technology

"Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions," added Odio.

The company wants the court to declare that the iTunesDB Pages do not violate the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and that the information they contain do not infringe Apple's copyrights.

It also seeks an injunction against Apple from asserting copyright or circumvention claims against OdioWorks in respect of the iTunesDB pages, costs, and the traditional "other relief the Court deems just and proper."

EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann said "Apple's legal threats against BluWiki are about censorship, not about protecting their legitimate copyright interests."

"Wikis and other community sites are home to many vibrant discussions among hobbyists and tinkerers," he added.

"It's legal to engage in reverse engineering in order to create a competing product, it's legal to talk about reverse engineering, and it's legal for a public wiki to host those discussions."

Back in November 2008, von Lohmann observed "Apple doesn't have a DMCA leg to stand on."

He pointed out that there was no "technology, product, service, device, [or] component" involved in the iTunesDB Pages, that the copyright holder of any particular iTunesDB file is the individual owner (not Apple), and that the hash does not prevent reading the iTunesDB file so it cannot be considered an access control under the DMCA.