Apple to pay bloggers' legal fees in free speech victory

Adam Turner
Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:08

Your IT - Home IT

Apple has been ordered pay $US700,000 in legal fees spent by free speech advocates establishing bloggers' first amendment rights to protect confidential sources.

A Santa Clara County Court found those writing on Mac news sites PowerPage and Apple Insider have the same rights as traditional journalists to protect sources. The sites published leaked details of an unreleased Apple product in November 2003, to which Apple responded by demanding records from their email service provider in order to trace the source of the leak.

Free speech advocates the Electronic Frontier Foundation came to the sites' aid, appealing an initial court decision in Apple's favour. Apple decided against appealing to California Supreme Court and has now been ordered to pay the EFF's legal expenses defending the sites, including a 2.2 times multiplier of the actual fees.