Good to see nobody is blaming Apple for this; there are legitimate problems with Apple's handling of the App Store (though perhaps taken too far sometimes), but this is clearly not their fault.
I think this points out a huge problem with the App Store. It shows that if a large company feels threatened by your app, all they have to do is send a legal threat to Apple and your app is toast.
If users were free to acquire software for their devices without Apple's interference, the authors would have the option to continue distributing the app and take their chances in court with the NYT.
Apple doesn't stand to lose much if they have to remove an app from the app store (even a top selling app), but they stand to lose a lot in a lawsuit. The cost of litigation might exceed what Apple stands to make on the app regardless of whether they win or lose a lawsuit. Therefore the App Store model gives companies leverage to destroy developers' apps and by extension to determine what kind of apps are available to users
This is completely Apple's fault. The New York Times' legal argument is invalid. You don't need a license to distribute a URL or code that fetches a URL. The onus is on the Times to only distribute their content to people they want to receive it. Pulse is doing nothing wrong, and Apple did not have to remove their app. Moreover, Apple shouldn't have removed their app.
You don't need a license to distribute a URL or code that fetches a URL.
You certainly can need a license, if that's the manner in which the owner is distributing it. The fact that it's allowed by the protocol doesn't mean that it's automatically legally permitted.
I think this is a bad idea on NYT's part but that they do have a leg to stand on.
You're wrong. It's automatically legally permitted. If I request something and the New York Times gives it to me, I've done nothing wrong. If I distribute code that requests something and the New York Times gives it to my users, I've done nothing wrong. If my code circumvents access controls, then I might have done something wrong, but that is clearly not the case here. There are no access controls, and that's the problem the New York Times should be fixing instead of making legal arguments they know are incorrect.
The issue might be that there's a difference between the HTTP request and the use case request.
Does a company have the right to dictate how its information is distributed? Even when they make it freely available?
One might argue that the most important part of the story is the first sentence, summary, or lede, and that the NYTimes is forgoing a lot of its own resources if they aren't able to charge people for it. But then -- can they fairly dictate that their RSS information is only valid for non-commercial users, but invalid for commercial users which compete with their own products that support their business?
On the one hand, we might want them to provide this RSS feed. It's better than nothing. It may even be seen as a service for the general public. And we might want to see them succeed as an organization, because we think their function in society is important, etc. So should we allow them to prohibit use of their information for commercial purposes? Even if those commercial purposes are only briefly and independently involved in the whole pipeline of news consumption?
> Does a company have the right to dictate how its information is distributed? Even when they make it freely available?
Yes. Pulse is not distributing the New York Times' content. They're distributing a program that asks the Times' for their content. The Times' obliges.
> But then -- at what point can they fairly dictate that their RSS information is valid for non-commercial users, but only invalid for commercial users which compete with their own products that support their business?
They can prevent distribution of their content for commercial purposes, but Pulse isn't doing that. The Times can't prevent receipt of their content, but they can choose not to give it to certain users to begin with.
> It may even be seen as a service for the general public. We might want to them to succeed as an organization, because we think their function in society is important, etc. So should we allow them to prohibit use of their information for commercial purposes?
No. That would prohibit creating commercial web browsers or any other innovation in the consumption of content that creators freely provide. The trade-off isn't worth it. If the Times' can't find a way to survive, I'll donate money to organizations who can. There's no need to sacrifice more of our rights to incentivize journalism.
I'm a journalist and I agree wholeheartedly. Journalism is valuable, but not so valuable that it trumps our rights or our common sense. If the current stock of journalists want to become the oppressors, time for regime change.
Sure, but at that point Apple could be held liable for knowingly selling the app (and why you assume Jobs is personally handling this, I have no idea). This is the way almost every content company works: when they receive a takedown notice, they comply. Whatever money Apple is making from the sales of the app pales in comparison to the amount of money the Times' lawyers could wring out of them. If this kind of thing became a problem that was significantly affecting the platform, they may need to step in, but for one-off cases they're not going to.
They're a publicly-traded business; they don't run on fairy dust and unicorn tears.
