Fake Steve Jobs gets takedown letters from Apple. Or not?
By Ryan Block 
posted December 22nd 2007 8:57PM
posted December 22nd 2007 8:57PM
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
> [...] Steve's secretive nature [...]
Have you ever heard word "privacy"????
The world just spends way too much time talking about Apple but I guess that is Apple's plan.
If he previously lied, just to get attention, about Apple threatening him to shut down, then there is libel. It hurts Apple's reputation and people get very angry with Apple: witness the anger here now. If this is another fake threat, then he's hurting Apple under false premises. If it's real, I believe it's warranted.
Why is it that Apple haters spend so much more time and energy talking about Apple than the Apple fans? It seems like the smallest thing sets them off on a rampage. The mere mention of Apple sends them into a frenzy. I wonder if they get worked up over real issues like Iraq? Probably not. They make nice stuff. Get over it. If you honestly don't like their products don't buy them and move on.
CONFIRMED FAKE
If you read today's entry you will see that it is now blatantly obvious that it was not true. I think he caught a lot of flak on this and had to make sure it was known that he was joking. This really is a case of libel not satire but since Engadget was really the only site taking it seriously as "news" and only the usual Apple haters were getting violent over it I guess it doesn't matter.
lol, yeah, I emailed him about how bad I thought it was they were attacking him, and yeah... Steve replied.
I am a tard.
Tai
Fake Steve is pulling an Andy Kaufman. Didn't anyone notice the random Tony Clifton reference at the bottom?
Well, I think the surest sign it's a fake is that he mentioned that he called his lawyer, "Tony Clifton" - Tony Clifton was the name of Andy Kaufman's faux-lounge singer persona that he invented, and traded performing as with his writer, so that Andy and "Tony" could perform live onstage.
So, unless Dan got the most unfortunately named lawyer for this story, it's a joke.
Can't figure out why the man would be lying about such a thing unless it's just another one of his jokes inspired by the Think Secret debacle.
Fake Steve Jobs jumped the shark with the first faux-take down. Now he's just begging for clicks. This isn't really funny outside of April 1st.
Aren't you talking about Apple right now?
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/23/daniel-lyons-cries-wolf-the-real-bill-gates-behind-the-fake-steve-jobs/