A Santa Clara County Court ordered Apple, Inc. to pay the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) over US$700,000 in legal fees associated with the defense of three popular Mac-oriented Web sites (PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret) in response to reports published about an unreleased Firewire breakout box for GarageBand, code-named "Asteroid."

"We are very pleased, as this will go a long way towards keeping EFF on the forefront of impact litigation defending the rights of online journalists and others," EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl wrote in an email. "Bloggers break the news, just like journalists do. They must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information. Without legal protection, informants will refuse to talk to reporters, diminishing the power of the open press that is the cornerstone of a free society."

Read more including a timeline of the Asteroid legal case on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.