Slash Lane
The $4 application, which serves as an RSS reader and news aggregator, was one of the best selling products on the iPad App Store. Jobs, Apple's CEO, mentioned Pulse on Monday during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, calling it a "wonderful RSS reader."
But Kara Swisher of BoomTown reported Tuesday that the software was pulled from the App Store later that day, after a complaint was filed by the Times. Why the newspaper complained remains unclear, as the Pulse news reader simply relies on the publicly available Times RSS feeds.
Update: Later Tuesday, the Pulse was back on the iPad App Store.
An e-mail sent by a lawyer for the Times suggested that the application was in violation of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com terms of use, because Pulse is a paid application.
"The Pulse News Reader app, makes commercial use of the NYTimes.com and Boston.com RSS feeds, in violation of their Terms of Use. Thus, the use of our content is unlicensed. The app also frames the NYTimes.com and Boston.com websites in violation of their respective Terms of Use," the note reads. "I note that the app is delivered with the NYTimes.com RSS feed preloaded, which is prominently featured in the screen shots used to sell the app on iTunes."
Ironically, the application was recently profiled by the Times, which called the software a "stylish and easy-to-use news aggregator." It went on to say that news organizations looking for how to present their content on the iPad might look to Pulse, created by two students of Stanford's Institute of Design.
The application rose to No. 1 a number of times on the iPad App Store, and sold more than 35,000 copies at $4 each. The creators said they plan to contact Apple to figure out what they must remove from the application in order to place it back on the App Store.
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31 Comments
Ironically, the application was recently profiled by the Times, which called the software a "stylish and easy-to-use news aggregator." It went on to say that news organizations looking for how to present their content on the iPad might look to Pulse, created by two students of Stanford's Institute of Design.
Clearly the NYT legal department don't read their own newspaper.
As of 1:00 Pacific time the application is still up on the store. Maybe all the publicity made Apple or NYT rethink the approach. I still don't understand why NYT didn't just privately contact Pulse and resolve it. Seems like another example of the big boys sh**ing on the little guys. I know that there may be some legal aspects to this, but regardless, it doesn't seem like Pulse was trying to rip off NYT. Me personally, I plan to boycott NYT content for being bullies.
Wow NYT bullying app developers! That's wrong, we are paying for the application not the information, the information is free. The developer makes money from the application delievered, how many paid applications that use free information already out there. How about those paid RSS readers, how about those... oh yeah Paid Web Browsers, should those all die because they can access Times.com. Wrong!
The Title of this piece makes Apple look like the bad guy/idiot, when it was neither. There will be many more situations like this. Copyrights and laws still hold water in the digital domain.
Wow NYT bullying app developers! That's wrong, we are paying for the application not the information, the information is free. The developer makes money from the application delievered, how many paid applications that use free information already out there. How about those paid RSS readers, how about those... oh yeah Paid Web Browsers, should those all die because they can access Times.com. Wrong!
I think it is slightly more complicated than that. I'm not an expert on RSS feeds, but I doubt that NYT has a totally frivolous claim. What I don't doubt is that their legal department is clueless about marketing and PR. I hope someone gets fired for this because it is going to generate a lot of press (ironic) and none of it good for NYT>