Rob,
You do, and have done, an outstanding job and have made the CAC one of the best automotive forums on the web. I'm quite sure you have the backing of the regulars, if not everyone, on here. I view your statement about 1st amendment rights, and what I believe your intention behind the statement is, to be accurate. That is, freedom of the press and freedom of speech does not mean anyone has the right to proliferate confidential material,
if that material is known to be confidential. That being said, for GM to pass out pictures of the new car to the media with an embargo date on them... well that's just asking for trouble.
The media must have
had to sign legal paperwork stating they would withhold those images until the embargo date, obviously there was a
leak from a media source for the images to get out to an everyday joe who posted them to a website. GM therefore should have no grounds to threaten him, he didn't release the images to the public, he simply posted a link. The internet is quite often a grey area of legal bounds. Beyond that, there are so many pictures floating around the web of various makes of new cars. I'm willing to bet that 99% or more of those images do not have a classified stamp, embargo date, or legal form attached. So the question begs to be asked, especially for all the members on this site who do post images, how does one come to find out if an image is indeed embargoed for media release after a certain date, vs ligit "spyshots" that are the property of the public domain and/or photographer who took the pictures?
All this playing nice is not in my nature, so here is my personal rant
ad ... I was just coming around to liking GM again, and was looking forward to buying a Z06/Z07 in the next 2 years, however I
hope GM is reading this. I'll be keeping my C5 instead, and my next car
will not be a GM product (not that they have anything worth a d**n other than Corvette). Should I decied $65k+ is a reasonable price for my next sports car, I'll be talking to the Porsche dealership again. The guys on the Z06 forum are right, GM should be spending the millions of dollars they are willing to use to "make a point" on customer service and product development rather than
threatening one of their customers.
Edit: To Clarify, I do support your position on this Rob, my main point was the question to be asked how one knows if an image is embargoed, as this is the first time I have ever heard of an embargoed picture? I just got off on a tangent because it really ticks me off to see GM doing this to one of their customers.