Apple Backs Off of Copyright, DMCA Claims Against Bluwiki

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 23, 2009 - 9:55am.

San Francisco - Digital civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has dismissed a lawsuit it filed against Apple (NASD: AAPL), after Apple dropped legal threats against public wiki hosting site Bluwiki.

Apple sent legal threats to Bluwiki in November, alleging that hobbyist postings discussing how to sync music and other media to an iPod or iPhone without its iTunes software amounted to copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The EFF sued Apple in April, asking a court to reject's Apple's claims and restore the posts that Bluwiki had taken down.

Earlier this month, Apple said in a letter that it was withdrawing its cease-and-desist demands and would not target the pages again.

"While we are glad that Apple retracted its baseless legal threats, we are disappointed that it only came after 7 months of censorship and a lawsuit," said EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

"Because Apple continues to use technical measures to lock iPod Touch and iPhone owners into -- and Palm Pre owners out of -- using Apple's iTunes software, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more discussions among frustrated customers about reverse engineering Apple products.