Woz’s Ongoing YouTube Lawsuit
CBS (via John Gruber):
Steve Wozniak, who helped introduce new technologies by inventing the earliest Apple computers, is sounding the alarm about one of the great threats of this new Information Age: internet fraud. He talks with correspondent John Blackstone about fighting for the victims of online scams involving AI, cryptocurrency and faked messages, and about his yearslong lawsuit against YouTube seeking what he considers better protections for consumers – a fight made harder by the government’s legal protections for online publishers.
They mean Section 230. YouTube will promptly remove copyright violations, but even after Woz reported that his likeness was being used to promote Bitcoin scams, it wouldn’t take them down. His litigation has been stalled for five years.
Woz just turned 75 and took some time on his birthday to comment on Slashdot (via Hacker News):
I gave all my Apple wealth away because wealth and power are not what I live for. I have a lot of fun and happiness. I funded a lot of important museums and arts groups in San Jose, the city of my birth, and they named a street after me for being good. I now speak publicly and have risen to the top. I have no idea how much I have but after speaking for 20 years it might be $10M plus a couple of homes. I never look for any type of tax dodge. I earn money from my labor and pay something like 55% combined tax on it. I am the happiest person ever. Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.
Wozniak sold most of his Apple stock in the mid-1980s when he left the company. Today, though, he still gets a small paycheck from Apple for making speeches and representing the company.
He says he’s proud to see Apple become a trillion-dollar company. “Apple is still the best,” he said. “And when Apple does things I don’t like, and some of the closeness I wish it were more open, I’ll speak out about it. Nobody buys my voice!”
I asked, “Apple listen to you when you speak out?”
“No,” Wozniak smiled. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
Previously:
- Apple: The First 50 Years (Forthcoming)
- Steve Wozniak Sues YouTube Over Bitcoin Scams
- The NTSC Color Hack
- Regis McKenna’s 1976 Notebook
- Sorkin and Boyle’s “Steve Jobs”
- Working With Woz
- Woz’s Regret
