Oh, how fickle the Internet can be. In an original Gizmodo post about installing OS X onto a Netbook, they noted that “Brian X. Chen said earlier today via Twitter that Apple “is suing Wired for my video tutorial on hacking netbooks to run Mac OS X.” However, things quickly changed as the story exploded and soon the updates started pouring in. I was ready to post something about it yesterday, but wanted to make sure I understood how things were going to progress before doing so. And of course, things did evolve – “Brian just tweeted that they’re not being sued, but notably, Gadget Lab’s video has still been taken down.” which then turned into – “Wired got back to us. The official story is that they’re not being sued, it was just a misunderstanding by Chen. But Wired has pulled the video after reviewing Apple’s complaint about it.”
So it looks like Apple turned on the heat with Wired and they backed down. I assume that whatever e-mail was sent to Wired certainly spooked Brian Chen, to the point where he would publicly state on Twitter that he was getting sued. This brings up several interesting questions – if a big public technology company comes after you and you’re a blogger, do you say something about it? Should Brian have just kept quiet? I think that Apple should let others try these endeavors, with the exception of promoting software piracy, because to do otherwise is a restriction on the essence of this industry – innovation and imagination.
Is it right for Apple to really pursue this when it essence it is just a consumer showing them that they want the ability to install the operating system on hardware of their choice? Of course, the video also described going to The Pirate Bay and downloading an illegal copy of OS X off a torrent, which Wired really shouldn’t have promoted. Most people watching the video in the first place probably understand where to get the bloody software from anyways.
