Apple accused of copyright wrongs

Apple Computer has been fiercely guarding its software on the Internet, battling OSX leakers on one front and iTunes hackers on the other. Apple's vigilance has inspired some to question whether the computer company is operating by the Golden Rule when it comes to others' work online.

Arve Bersvendsen doesn't think so. The Norwegian Web developer, after running the plagiarism detector Copyscape, says he discovered replicas of his CSS tutorial written into Apple's Webcore suite for testing how the company's open source Safari browser renders pages.

After notifying Apple of his discovery, the pages disappeared, Bersvendsen said. But he continues to fault Apple.

"My complaint is, as it has always been, that Apple did not answer the questions I asked them, that they didn't even have the courtesy to respond," Bersvendsen said. "As for thinking of removing the material as 'acknowledgement,' I don't think they are acknowledging much by doing so--removing it mostly serves as damage control....It would have been easier for them if they had just licensed the work for future use."

I won't elevate this to a matter of courtesy, but Apple didn't return my calls, either.