Now it’s happened again, with TechCrunch highlighting the issue (and showing an image of what a Pocket PC with an iPhone skin looks like) in an article called ‘Apple Bullies Bloggers, Again’.

Apparently Apple is sending cease and desist letters not only to the writer of the skin, but bloggers who are reporting the issue.

Naturally, Apple’s graphics and icons are copyright to Apple, and should not be copied by anyone. But in the era of the Internet, it’ll be a game of cat and mouse as Apple orders the software to be removed from one site, only to have it appear on another, and Apple’s lawyers ask that it be removed again. Lather, wash, rinse. Repeat.

It’s a little bit like Youtube and consumers continually uploading copyrighted content after Youtube has removed it. Until there is a way to definitively stop something from being uploaded, or being filtered accurately each time after uploading, figuring out how to stop protected content from appearing on the Internet is a battle that no-one has the answers to yet.

One thing’s for sure: this development has only increased the already sky-high interest in the iPhone, with Apple’s lawyers only helping to spread the word about this illegal iPhone skin even faster than otherwise. But what else could Apple do? Word would have spread, whether Apple acted or not.

What else is in store for us all in the continuing saga of the Apple iPhone? With the launch, Steve Jobs has opened iPandora’s box, and as always, it looks like it can never be iClosed.
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