Apple demands news site pull copy of iTunes Radio contract, claims copyright infringement

For years, tech publications large and small have hovered around Apple like fruit flies, constantly digging for scoops about the company's future products. Every once in a while, Apple swats one.

Digital Music News, which covers online music, yesterday yielded to a demand by Apple to remove a copy of a contract that iTunes Radio offered to small independent record labels, the site said in a blog post. Apple claimed that by posting a copy of the contract on its site, DMN violated Apple's copyrights.

Copyright? For a contract?

Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, says that contracts can indeed be copyrighted, although it's rare. "It's not out of legal bounds to do this," Goldman told The Verge. "It's just kind of a jerk move. We all know what's happening here. Apple doesn't care about protecting the copyright of contracts. It's using copyright to try and suppress information that it doesn't want made public."