Fake Steve Jobs gets takedown letters from Apple. Or not?

Seems like a lot of the noise being made today is coming out of Fake Steve's camp, where the man behind the curtain, Dan Lyons, has dropped the act to pen a few fairly disturbing posts. According to Lyons, Apple is riding him to shut down the blog, and sending him all manner of C&Ds and even legal documents outlining his personal finances, which they're threatening should he not comply. Sucks a ton for the dude if true -- he's something of a chum 'round here, and always has a kind word for Engadget -- but before you grab your pitchfork and torch you ought to know that something doesn't sit quite right with us.

First, and most obviously, the site is complete satire, and unlike this week's Think Secret shutdown, there are no possible or probable trade secrets published that would get Apple lawyers up in arms. Sure, Real Steve Jobs may have grown tired of the FSJ act, but as far as we know, constitutionally there's not a lot he or anyone else can do until Dan Lyons actually exits satire and enters the wonderful world of libel.

Second, this isn't the first time Fake Steve has accused Apple of trying to shut down the site -- Lyons later admitted that faux shutdown was a hoax he perpetuated while he was still anonymous so he could quit doing Fake Steve before his editors at Forbes found out it was him.

Finally, FSJ is clearly labeled "A Forbes Site" and is known to be such, and its author, Dan Lyons, is a full-time Forbes editor. Meaning all the hullabaloo about Apple threatening Dan's personal finances and whatnot seem kind of moot since he shouldn't have personal legal liability in this case. In other words, lawsuits and C&Ds should go to Forbes's legal team, not to Dan directly -- just like the billions of C&Ds Engadget is sent all go to Weblogs, Inc.'s legal team, not to Ryan Block.

Look, we'll apologize in advance if that's not the case and Apple is really going after Dan, but right now we're just not buying it. What say you, Stevetards?

P.S. -Yes, we've hit up Dan for comment, but have yet to hear back.

Read - FSJ gets "an offer" from Apple
Read - Dan Lyons has his personal finances threatened
Read - Dan talks more about the legal predicament

[Josh @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:21PM]

Satire.

[CubeGuy @ Dec 23rd 2007 3:13AM]

When has that ever stopped anyone?

[Mike @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:22PM]

Zomg! Apple bricked FSJ's website!

[nerdtalker @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:21PM]

Phew, well thank God that Apple hasn't become a secretive powerful corporation that threatens to sue small people, pushes DRM, issues takedown notices, threatens free speech, blogging, or anything evil like that.

Oh no, it never could be like The-Company-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named (***cough*** M$ ***/cough***)...

[ssuk @ Dec 23rd 2007 8:42AM]

Oh shi-- Nerdtalker, you can't compare Apple to MS, the fanboys will write 3 paragraphs to try and proving you wrong and make reference to your lack of sexual activity even if what they say is true or not!

[Luis @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:24PM]

I like pie

[Ian @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:27PM]

Gonna get an LG Voyager and a Zune just to spite Apple.

[justin @ Dec 24th 2007 12:21PM]

You just ruined Steve Jobs' Christmas. He's stress eating Whoppers and Steak and Eggs Florintine over your purchases.

[Fank @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:28PM]

Here's an idea!

Instead of caring about this at all, spend the time that you'd take to write a comment on this, helping someone. It will feel better than writing a comment. If you don't believe me, just try it once. That's all it takes. Trust me.

[Mike @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:33PM]

Judging by your comment I'm guessing that by "helping someone" you really mean "blowing someone," more specifically Steve Jobs. I'll stick with writing comments..

[Fank @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:39PM]

Jumping to conclusions is easy, but ending up with blowing Steve Jobs?

[helloUser @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:30PM]

I'm getting tired of apple turning into Big Brother. Wait, didnt they have a commercial for the Mac as being against big brother? Thats a shame, cuz now everywhere I look, theres an overwhelming amount of people that are part of the ipod cult. What a shame.

[jilie @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:49PM]

BREAKING NEWS!

[painty @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:53PM]

man... when did apple turn into a bunch of assh*les?

[Ryan @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:58PM]

Hmm, you must be new here.

[thethirdmoose @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:16PM]

The asterisk is kind of uneccessary. And by kind of, I obviously mean F*CKIN COMPLETELY... oh wait

[Jon @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:18PM]

Always had been.

[Todd @ Dec 22nd 2007 9:56PM]

I very much enjoy seeing C&Ds being over used and evolving into free advertising for the receiver.

For you patent trolls and prolific C&D senders, here's a quote:

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
--From Hamlet (III, ii, 239)

[rawhead @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:04PM]

Hmm, I'm really ambivalent about this. When I first saw his first post (yes, I'm subscribed to his RSS), I thought "satire". Then, the second and third post, I was like "Shit, it's true!".

But then, with the latest post, and specifically the last bit about EFF telling him to "eff off" (har har):

"Their response: "We only help people we like. Good luck." Click. Dial tone."


I'm back to skeptical again. Funny thing is, if this IS satire, it's gonna be really hard for him to come out of this unscathed. He'll alienate a good portion of his readership, and I'm suspecting Apple then WILL have some legal grounds for something like slander.

[rawhead @ Dec 23rd 2007 3:01AM]

Humph. My previous post didn't go through (never got conf. e-mail. Lost my semi-lengthy post..).

Anyway, I was saying that it's looking more and more like it was a hoax after all. Interesting comments at both FSJ's site about actual correspondence between his readers and RSJ ([e-mail]) confirming this, as well as an EFF guy denying the EFF bit on /.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=397462&cid=21795346

[rawhead @ Dec 23rd 2007 3:12AM]

Before hittin' the good ol' hay, I'll just say this:

I do, to a degree, agree with some of the commenters at FSJ calling all the "believers" retards, but I do believe there IS a line between satire and . . . well, I don't know the word, but between satire and "not satire."

And if a good portion, perhaps even the majority, of your readership who obviously are the types that do understand satire (they read his blog for crissakes) don't "get" it, then I do this he has crossed that line.

While I won't go all up in arms about it and certainly won't stop reading his blog (never planned to buy his book anyway), I'm not going to be with those who criticize or ridicule those readers who do.

Namaste. Peace out.

[iPriest @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:13PM]

That site is no satire it's just blasphemy. It's just not done to ridicule with religion. His holy Steveness should have unleashed his wrath much much sooner! This is even worse than the danish allah cartoons.

[helloUser @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:16PM]

You would be right if the danish cartoons didnt prove to be true had the muslims not reacted to them in violence, protesting, burning of embassies and calling for the beheadings of people. Did you not see their global hypocritical outrage?

[iPriest @ Dec 23rd 2007 12:30AM]

What you think is happening at this very moment? Millions of mac users are now burning the Forbes building down.

and off topic : don't we see the same outrage with US citizens when their symbols are touched?

[mcg @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:33PM]

Total hoax!

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:39PM]

Tempest in a teapot as opposed to a canary in a coal mine.

[strider_mt2k @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:41PM]

-canary in a coal mine...

[Jeremy K. @ Dec 22nd 2007 10:54PM]

lol I know this is off topic, but man, the comments are really hard to read with the avatars.

[Jeff Lewis @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:03PM]

His blog might NOT be protected by the satire defense.

There's a distinction between an instance of satire against a recognisable group or person, and an ongoing one. Even satire can become harrassment and this case, he's using Steve Jobs' and Apple's name. Apple's name in particular is trademarked.

To make it worse, at first, the writer was NOT identifed as a writer from Forbes magazine. That came out later.

I wouldn't take it as given that his stuff is protected by first amendment rights: it's not really news and it's not specifically published in the context of news - and as I noted, the scope and volume of the posts may have drifted from satire to harrassment. And then there's possible trademark issues.

[Mobius_1 @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:12PM]

Whatever happened to the First Amendment? Or does Apple not need to comply with the law?

[jbhitter24 @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:23PM]

apple [i]is[/i] the law.

[Mobius_1 @ Dec 23rd 2007 3:18AM]

OMG help me aluminum-clad iPhone holding men with Tasers at my door!!! Ahhhhhhhh

[Jake @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:21PM]

I hope that this is a fake! FSJ forever!

[Ray @ Dec 22nd 2007 11:44PM]

I've heard Apple's the new Microsoft, but I didn't think they meant it this way.

[Joe @ Dec 23rd 2007 12:30AM]

It's fake but now Apple can really sure them for libel.

[roole @ Dec 24th 2007 9:33AM]

No offense, jack, but Freakonomics is a piece of overblown, overargued cr4p that strays waaaaaaay beyond its authors' competence. Save your $20.

And, I think you are confusing the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Confidence with 'popular opinion' -- that's about as far as any half-way serious economist (that I know) would go with 'popular opinion.'

[jack @ Dec 23rd 2007 12:33AM]

Am I wrong or did some famous economist predict a downturn in popular opinion of Apple come Q12008? Apple is sure trying their damnedest to make it so. Note to Apples legal team: you serve C&Ds to people who dont like you and hurt your business. theres not even a profit motive in sinking FSJ or thinksecret its just plain arrogance.

[Mike K. @ Dec 23rd 2007 12:57AM]

I know there was an article in The Onion a while back that said that, but I don't think any actual news source ever alluded to such a thing.

[roole @ Dec 23rd 2007 11:10AM]

"Economists" do lots of things (and often get them wrong), but they **do not** make predictions on popular opinions.

[roole @ Dec 23rd 2007 11:13AM]

This 'avatar' thing on engadget.com looks quite sad. Really.

If there's a vote on getting rid of this silliness, please count one vote for "trash it."

[jack @ Dec 23rd 2007 3:28PM]

Firstly Mike an economist is not an "actual news source" they're researchers. and roole, economists most certainly can and do make predictions regarding popular opinions. You may be thinking of financial economists but there are many other fields of research an economist can go into, read Freakonomics if youre interested its a really cool book.

[Brian McBride @ Dec 23rd 2007 1:04AM]

Two things I don't like these days.

1. Apple & their corporate tactics. From downright lies in their advertising to strong-arm business tactics. More and more they are a close-minded company creating overpriced & under performing junk. I will give then that they have a good design staff.

2. All the fan-boys who blindly follow Apple. Apple could lock them all in a room and gas them to death, and as each died they would still be praising Apple and justifying why their deaths are a good idea.


Now, don't get me wrong, I am no Microsoft lover either. Nor do I love Unix to a fault. See, I look at a computer and I see a tool. That is it. I might use this tool for business or pleasure, but it is just a tool. Do I get all rabid fanboy over Makita vs Black and Decker? Or how about join the zero other people lined up to purchase that PBX system for the office? And man, the throngs of followers in the ongoing light-switch war - who will come out on top?

Maybe Santa will bring us all a present, some clarity that these are, after all, just computers. If you think a pretty mac is worth the extra money, go for it. If you like the Vista stuff great! Just please stop defending the respective companies like they are your favorite sport team to the rest of us. These are large corporations that only care about getting your money. None of them are sending you a heartwarming holiday card. They just want to sell the cheapest product they can at the highest price they can.

[Dean @ Dec 23rd 2007 1:40AM]

You write your arguments very well. Unfortunately, I don't see any of these blind Apple fanatics you so eloquently bashed.

Where are they? Why do they bother you so?

Or is it just that you don't like what a lot of other people do and the only reason you can think for that is "those other people must be mindless slaves?"

[roole @ Dec 23rd 2007 11:16AM]

"Apple could lock them all in a room and gas them to death, and as each died....."

Wow. I dread the day that we'll hear about you on the news. And, I don't think it will be pleasant news.

[Chicksta @ Dec 23rd 2007 11:46AM]

Two things I don't like about the two things you don't like:
1. Unless you work for Apple, your assumptions of their business practices are based on nothing more than speculation, rumor, and bias - and that even goes for assuming that they have a decent design staff, whereas you really have no idea what they outsource/hire outside firms to do. If you want to spew out anti-big-business socialist propaganda, don't target one company, fight the system, jeez.
2. People are taught from very early ages in many societies that their identity is based upon their beliefs. That then gets put into a 'team' mentality, where you're supposed to be on a side - there is only one right way. You're supposed to believe in your team no matter what, and if that is your favorite sports team, your political side, military branch, your OS platform, car manufacturer, whatever, it is supposed to be a part of who you are and define you. Some people may not care about sports teams, but care about an OS, or vice-versa. It's all the same mentality. So it's silly to debase people because they have passion for something because it differs from your belief system.
Some of us are comfortable enough with who we are to really not care if our personal preferences are lumped into that 'follower group' and called names by insecure trolls - including people who think that by refusing to do things because of their 'popularity' that somehow makes them unique or special, and not just pathetically overcompensating for wanting to be accepted and fit in. People are entitled to their opinions and should respect those of others without the stereotyping and prejudice that you display.

[Carbonize @ Dec 23rd 2007 2:19AM]

To be honest from what I have seen he just spends most of his time spamming his blog page all over the place but mainly on wired.com. He's just an attention seekers who's not intelligent enough to get attention for being himself.

[Miles @ Dec 23rd 2007 2:27AM]

FSJ is what we call SLANDER
He deserves what he gets.

[ssuk @ Dec 23rd 2007 8:47AM]

I say you're an idiot. See, that's correct depending on your point of view. So BAAAAAAAAAAAW.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Dec 23rd 2007 5:18AM]

Uhm... Who would be happy to have his name abused?

I rarely found FSJ pieces to be funny. And why use a real name of a living person anyway?

FSJ should pick some neutral name e.g. "Apple's Chief Defunct Officer Blog" or whatever.

Abusing someone's else real name always was and is wrong.

[jack @ Dec 23rd 2007 4:46PM]

Maybe a life of Woz blog would be a little offputting, but Steve's secretive nature naturally lends its self to this kind of rampant speculation for the sake of comedy, like talking about Steve coming up with the idea for only 1 button on the iPhone while tripping out on peyote with Sting in the Amazon. Thats brilliant