Fake Steve Jobs gets takedown letters from Apple. Or not?

Seems like a lot of the noise being made today is coming out of Fake Steve's camp, where the man behind the curtain, Dan Lyons, has dropped the act to pen a few fairly disturbing posts. According to Lyons, Apple is riding him to shut down the blog, and sending him all manner of C&Ds and even legal documents outlining his personal finances, which they're threatening should he not comply. Sucks a ton for the dude if true -- he's something of a chum 'round here, and always has a kind word for Engadget -- but before you grab your pitchfork and torch you ought to know that something doesn't sit quite right with us.

First, and most obviously, the site is complete satire, and unlike this week's Think Secret shutdown, there are no possible or probable trade secrets published that would get Apple lawyers up in arms. Sure, Real Steve Jobs may have grown tired of the FSJ act, but as far as we know, constitutionally there's not a lot he or anyone else can do until Dan Lyons actually exits satire and enters the wonderful world of libel.

Second, this isn't the first time Fake Steve has accused Apple of trying to shut down the site -- Lyons later admitted that faux shutdown was a hoax he perpetuated while he was still anonymous so he could quit doing Fake Steve before his editors at Forbes found out it was him.

Finally, FSJ is clearly labeled "A Forbes Site" and is known to be such, and its author, Dan Lyons, is a full-time Forbes editor. Meaning all the hullabaloo about Apple threatening Dan's personal finances and whatnot seem kind of moot since he shouldn't have personal legal liability in this case. In other words, lawsuits and C&Ds should go to Forbes's legal team, not to Dan directly -- just like the billions of C&Ds Engadget is sent all go to Weblogs, Inc.'s legal team, not to Ryan Block.

Look, we'll apologize in advance if that's not the case and Apple is really going after Dan, but right now we're just not buying it. What say you, Stevetards?

P.S. -Yes, we've hit up Dan for comment, but have yet to hear back.

Read - FSJ gets "an offer" from Apple
Read - Dan Lyons has his personal finances threatened
Read - Dan talks more about the legal predicament