Something Awful has received a cease and desist order from Apple threatening legal action if a link from the site to the MacBook Pro’s user manual is not removed.

Apparently, a SA user posted a link to the manual while attempting to help other users resolve the ongoing problem of MacBook Pro’s disassembly/heat problem:

May 2, 2006

Re: Infringement of Apple’s Intellectual Property Rights webmaster@somethingawful.com

Dear WebMaster:

Apple Computer, Inc. (“Apple”) recently noticed that Apple’s copyrighted material is available for download at your website http://somethingawful.com. Specifically, there is a link to Apple’s Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro in the discussion thread at http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh…readid=1864582.

The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Apple’s intellectual property and is protected by U.S. copyright law. Linking to the manual on your website is an infringement of Apple’s copyrights. We therefore must insist that you immediately take all necessary steps to remove the Service Source manual and any other Apple copyrighted material from your site and to prevent further unauthorized use or distribution of Apple intellectual property.

The site’s WebMaster posted this response:

NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING is even hosted on SA. All we have is a link going to somebody else’s webspace. I guess Apple has no clue how the Internet even works; they should be threatening to sue the ISP hosting the horribly illegal service manual, not some guy who runs a forum where his forum members are TRYING TO HELP people fix issues with their faulty Apple computers. I replied to Apple and told them basically to screw off because I’m not doing anything illegal. All I got back was a standard form letter, so who knows if they even bothered reading it.

Read more here.

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