The news that popular Apple rumor site Think Secret will be shutting down as part of an agreement with Apple gives the distinct impression the Cupertino company managed to bully the site and its publisher into submission. But Gross & Belsky partner Terry Gross (pictured right) has a very different take on the agreement.
Gross, who's represented Think Secret publisher Nick Ciarelli since 2005, says Apple is actually the real loser in this deal. And others, including some digital rights groups, seem to agree.
"The First Amendment has prevailed," Gross told Computerworld on Thursday, "and every internet journalist should feel some strength from what's happened."
So what did happen? And how exactly is it a triumph for freedom of the press advocates? Apparently, right after Ciarelli filed a counter motion to Apple's 2005 lawsuit, the company lost interest in the case, according to Gross. Put another way, Apple realized it probably wouldn't prevail in court so it stopped pressing the issue.
"Apple stopped pressing their lawsuit, and essentially nothing happened," Gross said. "Nick kept writing his articles, and Apple kept sending cease and desist letters."
As Nick told EPICENTER this morning, he has a pile of those cease and desist letters, which he continually ignored. Now we know why.
Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl is also surprisingly upbeat about Thursday's agreement. He told the AP that he was ''very pleased'' that no confidential sources were revealed as part of the agreement.
As a nonprofit organization that deals with free speech, privacy and consumer rights issues online, the EFF has represented the online journalists in Apple's other case against the people who had presumably leaked information or divulged trade secrets.
Opsahl also said that Apple was facing a ''real possibility'' of losing its case against Think Secret and also having to pay the site's legal fees.
Indeed, Gross is so confident about his client's legal position he actually told Computer World he would have loved it if Apple had gone forward with the case.
"Apple would have caved, which they should have in the beginning," he said.
Although Ciarelli won't comment on the precise terms of the confidential agreement, if Gross and Opsahl are right, it's reasonable to assume both sides may have actually walked away with what they wanted. With Apple realizing it wasn't going to win in court and Ciarelli preparing to graduate from Harvard and move on to other areas of interest, Apple may have simply offered a little money to prompt Ciarelli to do what he was already planning to do: kill Think Secret.
