Don't Apple Lawyers Have Better Things To Do?

MIC Gadget have produced a Steve Jobs action figure that comes complete with speech bubble cards of classic Jobs' phrases. It sells for USD 80 so it is not cheap. But, hey, Let's face it, people love their Apple and they love its founder, Steve Jobs. So, USD 80 sounds like a steal. And, it was of Apple's intellectual property rights.

In fact, it was a steal. The action figures sold out in no time at all. MIC Gadget marketed the figure as the "Phenomenal SJ Figurine". As you can see from the figurine, it is a dead ringer for Jobs down to the black turtleneck and the New Balance 991 joggers. The little iPhone and the Apple icon as a figurine stand are nice little touches.

However, it seems that MIC Gadget failed to get Apple's permission to use their intellectual property. Consequently, Apple's lacking a sense of humour lawyers fired off a "cease and desist" order to MIC Gadget. Game over! The figurine is no more. So, if you were one of the lucky few to get one on the first issue, then you currently have a collectors item that has significantly appreciated in value! Maybe not quite as much as an Apple Share or that of a Google share, but nonetheless it has appreciated in value.

MIC Gadget have apologised for their errors in producing and selling the doll. However, they have offered to continue to produce it, particularly if Apple was prepared to license it and, say, bundle it with the iPhone 4. These people at MIC Gadget really do have a great sense of humour. No word yet as to whether Apple is interested in taking MIC Gadget up on its offer.

The weird and wonderful world of corporate America, and perhaps business in general all over the world!

Citizen Journalism, Steve Jobs, and the Apple Share Price

The rapid improvements in technology and the greater accessibility to it for the ordinary person has meant that the term citizen journalism has come to mean a rapid dissemination of information no matter whether that information is true or not. Any information that is untrue will eventually be found out but perhaps not before the damage is already done.

Apple learnt this the hard way recently. It would be sublimely ironic if the person that posted the erroneous report was using Apple technology or was a shareholder in Apple.

Time Warner who is the owner of CNN and therefore of a site called iReport which was put together by CNN as a community journalism portal. iReport is designed to be a portal for information that is directly uploaded to the site without any real vetting. The headline for iReport is unedited, unfiltered, news. Any information uploaded that is found to contravene the "community guidelines" for the site will be removed.

I am sure that CNN have posted a big disclaimer that it is not responsible for nor guarantees the accuracy of the information that gets uploaded to the iReport site.

A posting on iReport claimed that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, had suffered a heart attack and was being rushed to hospital. As bad as the heart attack for Jobs might have been if it was real was cause for investors to panic and perhaps have heart attacks themselves.

In the ensuing panic Jobs might actually have had a heart attack when he saw Apple's share price plummet some 9% and hitting a 17-month low and finally closing down some 3% for the day's trade. The report and the rapid fall in share price has sparked the interest of the Security and Exchange Commission. The SEC has indicated that they are going to investigate.

This is not the first time Jobs has had medical problems in fact it has been reported by Bloomberg that Jobs had died as recently as August. Jobs responded by telling the audience at his next public appearance that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

The question is whether or not erroneous reporting like this example is enough to kill citizen journalism. My view is that it is not. The reality is that people need to take responsibility as much for what they read as they write. Besides there are probably more instances of citizen journalists being right on the money rather than missing big time like this report of Steve Jobs imminent demise.