By now the news that Adobe is suing Macintosh News Network is all over the Internet. The details are a bit murky to those who have not been followingthe MacNN and Appleinsider links, but now there's more corporate pressure being applied.

Microsoft has apparently pressured Appleinsider to pull an article entitled "An Inside Look at Office 2001," which is no longer on their server. The Adobe suit in itself could result in tens of millions of dollars in damages, which would surely shut down MacNN if they were forced to pay. While this is probably unlikely, given the murky nature of Internet publishing, freedom of the press, and a host of unresolved intellectual property issues, the prospect of having to mount a serious legal defense has to be sobering to MacNN.

We have several observations:

1. We've been in this business for 3 years and had no idea that Appleinsider was part of MacNN (OK, so we're ignorant). Probably this was obvious from the fine print at the bottom of the page, but busy news editors have no reason to peruse this information. We must not have been alone, either, because there has been considerable confusion in published reports we have read as to just who is being sued. . .

2. We note that the lawsuit was filed on May 31 but that the story broke only yesterday. (Perhaps MacNN did not consider this to be news or anybody else's business.) We might all still be in the dark had not the information been published by a legal newspaper, the Recorder, as well as Law.com.

4. The best -- and we mean the best -- report on this lawsuit was posted yesterday at TidBITs by Adam Engst. Read it. Publishing information that can damage Apple or a major software developer is far too common a practice on Macintosh web sites, and that is the major reason why your editor does his best to avoid repeating rumors or even acknowledging them. We wonder if MacNN was trying to have its cake and eat it too by running an associated rumor site. This would be very difficult to do and maintain journalistic integrity, it seems to us.

4. And now Microsoft has been able to get a story pulled by (apparently) threatening to sue as well. No one should be surprised. The fact is, however, that First Amendment rights in the U.S. are very powerful, and it is far from clear that any corporation can win in the courts with lawsuits like Adobe's, even if the company is on relatively firm moral ground.

October 14, 2008