First Apple, then us

Urgent question for the Network World legal department: Can we continue to offer podcasts on our Web site or do we risk getting our asses sued off like Apple if some reader cranks up an executive interview to 115 decibels and splits an eardrum?

Ah, for the good old days when everyone could just presume that question was a joke.

Today we have a fancy-pants law firm filing a class-action suit against Apple in behalf of one John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana, an iPod user who last we heard has suffered no hearing loss from using his iPod or anything else. The law firm, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, contends that the mere fact a fully loaded iPod might harm its client and other members of the class entitles everyone to help themselves to the Jobs family fortune.

Have an iPod? You, too, can claim your slice of this pie right on the law firm’s Web site.

Which brings us back to my original question. If Apple’s on the hook here, why not MP3 content pushers like Network World? Apple’s selling the gun … we’re selling the ammunition.

 There’s a lawyer somewhere reading that and mumbling, “Why not?”