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Adobe Sues MacNN Over Photoshop Article
petard writes: "Law.com ran this article on how Adobe is suing MacNN over an article which appeared on AppleInsider with detailed information on and screenshots of Photoshop 6, currently in (non-public) beta. Could this be bad news for other rumor sites, and possibly even sites like Slashdot? Hope MacNN wins ..."
Wow.
l egal-nonsense" guaranteed right ), is only biting the hand that feeds you. Cover your the new version release of your primary revenue stream software? I'll have to consult our legal department first....
There must be a medical boneheaded-knee-jerk response test that is a mandatory job requirement in some of the corporate legal departments.
Instead of viewing it correctly as free publicity, it's automatically classified as a threat.
Beta-screen leaks to be accepted. It's all calculated into the marketing scheme to grab attention and future {mind, market} share. Suing the companies that publish (as in, freedom of the press, a "Constitutionally-but-still-subject-to-corporate-
Maybe what they should do is what the automotive industry does: disguise the object in question. That's right. Photographs of prototype cars, pre-production models, proof-of-concept cars, etc. are a mainstay of the automotive magazine. The manufacturer's counter to the various "spy" photographs: disguise the vehicles in question.
I can just see the user interface now:
Beta Tester: "Where's the zoom button?"
Quality Assurance Tester: "It's that black button right there."
BT: "You mean this black button?"
QAT "No, no, the other black button."
BT: "Oh, you mean this black button."
QAT (frustrated tone): "No, that black button."
BT: "Screw this, the entire user interface is black buttons. Even the workspace is blacked out. Why don't I just turn off the monitor and move my mouse around and make 'ooh, ahh, pretty' sounds?"
QAT: (under their breath) "I hate this fucking job...."
The press is not interested in what it reasonable or considerate. They do not care what benefits the public. They want to get their name on a really good by-line.
It's pathetic, but it is all too often true.
And if somebody else told the publisher? Tough for Adobe. The first amendment is pretty strong.
One other thing to note is that anyone with the Pre-release probably had to sign an NDA which would prohibit such articles. If they signed an NDA and proceeded with an article anyway it's their own stupid fault and they should be sued.
forgey
Monish Bhatia, the publisher of Washington, D.C.-based Macintosh News Network, said no one sent the publication information about Adobe's Photoshop 6.0 and ImageReady 3.0. "That particular document was accessible in the public domain," Bhatia said.
If they got their information from public domain documents, what exactly is Adobe suing about??
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Those pictures were doctored. Look at the serial number: Apple Insider. Anyone who knows about Adobe products knows that you HAVE to put a real serial# there. They covered the real name and serial number to protect the person who showed them the screenshots.
You will never see IAAL, at least not from a good one, as they know they could be liable for providing erroneous legal advice.
...check out the page title at AppleInsider today.
uh- if feature creep runs out of momentum, then that's a PERFECT TIME to port to other platforms, broaden your market, maybe, uh, HEY ADOBE, HERE'S A FREE CLUE!!! PORT TO LINUX, PORT TO COCOA! MORONS!
I think that it's totally natural for a product to run out of new features to add. And that's okay if your competitors have also run out of innovations. Sometimes, technology develops to a point where, it's done.
The software industry usually cancels a product, or wraps it's functionality into another product, at this point, instead of doing what it *should* do - fix the bugs that have lingered since version 1.0, optimize the code so it runs faster. Port to other platforms. All the crap you don't do normally because you're in a race with a competitor to provide the most checkboxes in the product review matrix.
(something I wish the Backup software industry had a clue about).
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sure, if MacNN was under NDA, then they shouldn't be spreading that information around. But even then, now that I've read the information at MacNN, there's nothing that prevents me from passing it on. Once the information reaches someone who isn't under NDA, it's too late. The secret's out, and Adobe will have to take it out on whomever leaked. They can't just sue the press for publishing something like this if it was given to MacNN as a tip.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the law (the Beta Tester surely broke the license) but with one proviso:
As much as we may hate the Big Boys, I think it's *very* germaine to find out if AppleInsider knew or suspected that the license was being broken. If not, they are co-conspirators, just like you don't have to pull the trigger to be a part of a murder conspiracy. AppleInsider is hardly a naive innocent - this is their stock in trade.
Imagine someone slipped your sister a 'date-rape' drug and took various photos without her consent. If they submit those pictures to a porn site, would you argue:
a) The website didn't know. They are innocent, and can continue to host these photos.
b) The website didn't know. They are innocent, but should take the photos down.
c) Holy Haddock! Maybe they didn't they didn't know, but any reasonable person would have asked! I mean there's a naked, unconscious (possibly underage) girl in those pictures. Not asking if it was 'posed' with proper concent obtained is tantamount to "Wanton Disregard" for the law and the rights of others or "Willful Neglect" at the very least. At worst, it's a tissue-thin pretense.
d) Da Bi-yatch Axt 4 it. And biznesus suk. Fsck 'em all.
e) Regrettably, there exists no contract between the site and your sister, and the material is 'out in the public now', so the cat's out of the bag. You can prosecute the scumbag with the drug -- if you can find him, but the porn site's actions were perfectly okay, and since there are 1st Amendment (free speech and freedom of the press) issues here, the porn site doesn't even have to help locate the scumbag: he's a "protected source"
Recall, the issue here is the *pictures*, not anything else the scumbag might have done.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
No one at MacNN entered into an "agreement". THEY DIDNT SIGN AN NDA. They can't be held liable for a contract they NEVER agreed to. So take your "mob mentality" rubbish someplace and start thinking before you open your mouth.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
It's harder to get a slanted review in your favor out of the regular magazines, if you don't protect their monopoly on information by going after the rumor rags who jumped the gun, and scooped the regular press.
I've been suprised for years that it's taken this long for someone to sue. I know Apple has been pretty tight against the rumor sites for some time now - I suppose nobody's sued because it's so hard to prove violation of NDA.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The Gimp itself doesn't support editing in CMYK. It does, however, support printing in CMYK, and 6 and 7 color printers (CcMmYyK). The development version of the print plugin (which I am project lead for) supports the latest Epson Stylus printers, including the Photo 870 and 1270, and produces print quality comparable to Windows (many people think that in certain ways the print quality is better, although the smoothness still has a ways to go).
See http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net for more information on this.
I should check Macslash out. I'm always looking for any good tips on how to tweak the NetBSD I run on my Macintoshes. Right now what I want is to know how to tweak the X server so that it has a virual screen larger than the 512x348. I'm running X on an SE/30, of course. It's a bit cramped sometimes.
See my other comment this article, with link to screenshot of imageready 3 reg. screen with appleinsider's name on it. That means somebody filled in all the reg. forms on screen with the name AppleInsider... prolly including the "I will not gab" bit.
Hint: be imaginative. Note that the recent stories are in the 0006 directory, Adobe-vintage ones are in 0005, and directory listings are permitted on the site.
Note also that adobe legal can be abbreviated "alegal", and the new product seems to be code-named 'venus in furs', often hyphenated. Most of the articles end with ".shtml".
Got it now? If you post the actual links, chances are that somebody doing searches will notice, and the articles themselves will disappear...
Trade secrets do not lose protection if they are stolen or otherwise illegally obtained.
But they weren't stolen or illegally obtained if MacNN was given them by someone breaking their NDA. MacNN has no obligation to uphold an agreement between Adobe and a third party. There's nothing illegal about participating in someone else breaking a contract. As long as the leak remains anonymous, Adobe has no legal recourse.
Of course IANAL.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Follow this link.
Then no one would care. Open source projects are generally conducted in the open, all the way from version 0.0.1alpha (just take a look at Freshmeat =). Problems with the technology are discussed quite openly, and anyone is welcome to submit suggestions.
A number of times, it has actually happened that newspaper or some other medium mentioned a bug in an open source project and it was fixed the next day. But it has also happened that J. Random User mentioned a bug in an open source project and it was fixed the next day. With open source, you don't have to be a major media outlet for developers to listen to you.
Back to your original question, though, it is absolutely true that the law should be upheld. If someone violated their beta testing agreement, they should be responsible for that. Comparing that to MSN and open source is apples and oranges, though.
Actually, the only time I have seen anyone complain about an MS* report is when they misstate or distort facts about their competition. (Granted, this is pretty much whenever they open their mouth, but still...) There are the random trolls who just yell "LINUX IS GOD, AND TORVALDS IS ITS PROPHET" but most developers are grateful for any pointers or suggestions, no matter what the source.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Please see post 18 for the answer to this. Of course, that poster was not a lawyer.
alomst anything on screen. film, video, web. and yes, you can do print, just that calibrations more difficult.
when i use to make my living off print, i would work in RGB and let the printers handle the CMYK. it worked great (and for print formats that take RGB, like fugix which gives nice output). of course, i was carefull about the gamut. (with fugix, this was not a problem, but i only used that sometimes) most of this time i was still using photoshop, and the gamut warning was nice. but my point is that not all print work needs to be done with CMYK, and most of the time, where ever you take the files for printing can do better color seperations than you can. if we could get printer profiles for the gimp then a gamut warning should not be too hard to add.
The other possibility is they are suing to generate publicity. I don't pay attention to the rumor factories, so I didn't know a new version was coming out. Now that they have sued, everybody knows about the new version.
If the screenshots suck, they can claim that the program is in pre-beta and we should not have seen them anyway. Besides, screenshots taken by somebody other than the company PR department will always look a little weird.
Heck, now we're both stating that individual cases can't be used as a blanket solution. I agree with ya there.
Umm... If there's no *proof* of damage and there's no reason for a reasonable individual to suspect damage, then they can't sue for damages. So yes, if you don't suffer, you can't sue.
The operative words being 'reasonable' and 'suspect'. I'd file myself under the "reasonable individual" category, and I'd suspect that there's the potential that a company could be damaged by the unauthorized release of company private information..
It is not *right* to right to file a petty and pointless lawsuit just because copyright law says you can. Seems obvious to me.
Of course it's obvious to you. It's equally obvious to me that when a company is faced with a situation where a public website posts information that could only have been acquired through a breach of contract or other illegal means, they'd better give pretty big damn about it. If the case seems petty, where does one draw the line between "stuff it's okay to illegally disclose" and "stuff it's not okay to illegally disclose"? Perhaps they should consult the /. community first to see whether the privacy they're trying to protect is silly or piddling?
Can't see how I'd be irrepably harmed if you copied my 17 Gb archive of lesbian porn. Can't see how I'd be irrepably harmed if you saw a screenshot of my latest dev project either.
Hee hee...you said "lesbian porn". Heh. HAW HAW HAW! *sniff*
Let's try another angle, a tad simpler approach. Assume, for a moment, that you have something of value that you wish to keep private. Now imagine that it gets stolen. Now imagine that I buy said thing from the thief and distribute said thing across the internet for anyone to see, maybe even turning a little profit in the matter. Would you still champion my 'right' to distribute said thing because I wasn't the party that actually committed the violation of contract/law?
Actually, I just wanted to make it clear that I didn't use a game with *some* resale value as a coaster. And my copy of half-life was pirated too.
Well then, I tip my hat to your mad pirating skillz. J00 0\/\/N |\/|3. 1 PH33R.
Yeah, and if you smack yourself in the testicles, and you get past the initial agony, the pain diminishes considerably.
Hee hee....'testicles'! HAW HAW HAW HAW!
Remember, kids, it's only premarital if you plan on getting married.
These guys just aren't having any luck are they.
Yes, a picture can be property. But those pictures are works of art, and can take a lot of work to create. If you took your camera to the Ford showroom and took a snapshot of the shinny new car sitting up there on the pedestal, you take nothing away from Ford. You didn't steal anything, you didn't waste their time, nothing. A screenshot can't be property unless it is a work of art that is the result of effort. Probably in this case somebody just clicked a few buttons and then Save As.... You can't take something away from Adobe by doing that.
it's green.
The subject of dispute here, which is decided in the courtroom, is when, exactly, a secret has been given out to the public.
If MacNN can show that the informant gave info to MacNN, as well as other rumor sites (given the nature of rumor sites, even one would likely do), the court would likely decide that the secret had been 'given out to the public' when MacNN had it.
Putting something on a web site is an easy way to say something has been given out to the public, but a much smaller segment can be 'the public' as well. For example, if the screen shots had been mailed to an employee at Quark. Poof. No more trade secret, as a competitor would qualify as 'the public'. Does MacInsider qualify? Probably.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
...in Photoshop 5 is accomplished by pressing shift-M now.
Nice that they allow >99 layers now, but what I'd really like would be the ability to group/hide/move layers within the layers floater.
By the way, did macnn give away free copies of Photoshop6 beta?
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
bad day...your flamebait post got to me and I didn't keep my cool. No need to call people names, I know. But you really need to re-think what youre saying, because it doesnt follow law precedent or even *common sense* I tell you a secret and you agree not to tell anyone. Then you break that agreement and tell a 3rd party. Who is responsible? you are for breaking the agreement. Does that 3rd party have to keep quiet? No, they didnt agree to it so they arent liable. If anyone is going to be sued, its you for breaking contract, not the 3rd party.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
1. If you are a graphic artist, sooner or later some client will send you a disk from another graphic artist with a file done in Illustrator 9 and you may be required to buy or warez version 9 in order to complete his job.
2. I recommend anyone who is considering buying or upgrading Illustrator to reconsider and buy Canvas instead...
3. And Corel's Photopaint... is good enough to COMPLETELY REPLACE PHOTOSHOP for much less money.
You say that if I use Illustrator 8 I will one day need to upgrade to version 9 to accomodate a customer? That is very valid and very true. The part I don't understand is that using Canvas/PhotoPaint will allow me to not have to upgrade to the newer Adobe versions. If there is some new proprietary feature in Illustrator/Photoshop that I need to use and can't be circumvented by saving as an .eps/.tiff/.somethingelse then you can be damn sure some other companies product isn't going to support it either.
I would still have have to get raped by Adobe for their upgrade and I will have wasted time, money and training on another product as well!
In the graphic arts industry it is extremely difficult to deviate from the "industry standards" because your service bureau probably doesn't have it/doesn't support it/doesn't have anyone who knows how to use it/doesn't know what it is.
MacSlash: News for Mac Geeks
I read a version of the article on MacWeek.com. It was a fairly neutral article, but the user comments were mostly negative. Photoshop 6 doesn't seem to have too many new features - but at least they're pushing the layer limit past 99. I hate having to merge layers to keep under that threshold in the latter stages of a project.
One feature they desperately need is layer groups/folders. You can link layers, etc, but being able to shift groups of them around in the layers palette (not changing the x/y positioning within the document itself though, just the z) would be very handy.
And also, they need to switch the usage of the M key back to Photoshop 4 style, where it switched between rectangular and circular marquee select modes. In Photoshop 5 it just selects the previously used one, and repeatedly hitting it does SFA (unless it's just my version).
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
...Then again, web design is also pretty easy on a P-133 running Win95. Oh yeah, Apache 1.3.12 for DOS, there's a program with a giant footprint... could never do the stuff in Windows you can do in Linux, could you?
Then it's quite possible that they'll pay the price.
Whether you agree with it or not, the law is the law.
BlackNova Traders
What are you talking about? They claimed it was a trade secret. In general, that means that the stuff in question is not protected by other things. Anyway, screenshots are probably not copyright violations in a review; that's fair use.
Copyright violation "used for commercial gain" may or may not get into the criminal realm, or the huge damages; it's totally dependant on other context. I doubt a court would award anything of the sort.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I don't think that's right. Adobe isn't denying that they're working on Photoshop 6, but they don't want everyone to know how advanced it is right now. After all, if you knew that Photoshop 6 existed and was to be released tommorrow, there probably wouldn't be much incentive to buy Photoshop 5.5, would there?
This should not effect sites like Slashdot because normally Slashdot doesn't talk about closed betas, just links to them. Of course, who knows how linking might end up
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
They've already removed the links to the articles. Mirrors, anyone?
Jason
...go after it's QA folks and UI designers who exist in a culture that loves to trade software and insider secrets. -- ib
--- Speaking only for myself,
I want to see article, but apple insider said links were removed for adobe legal team. oog's lover break adobe legal team head with open source cd, oh yeah, oog's lover find new terminal that have lower case woo hoo, does anybody have a mirror we can look at?
I disagree. There are several significant elements of the Adobe case that differ from the Ford v. Blue Oval case.
First, Ford's suit involved revelations about a product that was already sold, and had already been widely reviewed elsewhere. The Article quoted, for example, observations by Car and Driver. The documents were used to confirm and elaborate on existing, legal comments. The Apple Insider article was entirely information that could not have been obtained from any legal source.
Second, there were very germaine issues of public interests in this case, including safety issues, reliability issues, and misrepresentation of the product being sold (e.g. Ford dynamometer tests showed the engine did not develop the horsepower advertised). There is no compelling public interest in the Apple Insider case.
Thirdly, the Ford suit was directed at preventing publication, not monetary damages, etc. they may well have won a suit on different grounds (and could still bring such a suit). However, there were 'common sense' issues involved in trying to recover damages for revealing your own corporate malfeasance. Adobe would have no problem suing for damages (however difficult to assess) rather than merely 'cease and desist'.
Fourthly, despite their self-proclaimed 'victory', Blue Oval lost most of the issues in the case, which was only a preliminary injuction. The finding was titled Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plaintiff' Motion for Preliminary Iinjunction. There were three major points, and two sub points. They won on the first count, a 'prior restraint' clause, and partly because it was a preliminary injunction and (one suspects) partly because Ford committed some egregious offenses, such as e-mailing the ISP before the petition for the TRO (Technical Restraining Order) was heard, and claiming that the site was in violation of a court order, thereby unlawfully shutting down the site for several days.
Bottom Line: Blue oval can't use the documents, and copyright/trademark infringement suits may still be brought without prejudice The defendant was even ordered to preserve evidence for such a future suit (See Court findings below.) It hasn't been that long (in court terms) since this verdict, and i haven't checked - a case may have been filed already.
Make no mistake, I think Ford was wrong, wrong, wrong, to hide this info. but this case may not be the best example to bring to the defense of Apple Insider!
1) Ford's request for preliminary injunction of Lane's using, copying, or disclosing Ford's internal documents is DENIED, and Ford's request for a preliminary injunction against Lane's use of Ford's trademarks and logo is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as moot.
2) The other aspects of Ford's request for a preliminary injunction are GRANTED since Lane stipulated to the entry of a preliminary injunction as follows:
A. Lane is restrained from destroying, despoiling or electronically deleting or erasing documents in his possession originated by or for Ford Motor Company.
B. Lane is restrained from (1) committing any acts of infringement of Ford's copyrights, including unpublished works known by Lane to have been prepared by a Ford employee within the scope of his or her employment, or specially ordered or commissioned by Ford, if not an employee; and (2) interfering with Ford's contractual relationship with its employees by soliciting Ford employees to provide Ford trade secrets or other confidential information.
3) Lane is still obligated to comply with that part of the August 25, 1999 Temporary Restraining Order which required him to file with the Court, and serve upon Ford, within ten days, a sworn statement (1) identifying with particularity all documents within his possession, custody or control which were originated by or for Ford, (2) identifying the source (by name or description) of each document, and (3) providing details as to how Lane acquired each document.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
We could save ourselves some time by asking the people who are actually lawyers to put IAAL in their posts. That way, everyone else - the majority of posters - could quit putting IANAL in their posts.
As a side benefit, you could search the page for 'IAAL' and easily identify lawyers in order to flame them.
If they violated it, it is actionable.
The idea behind non-public betas are to allow a company to test the product (w/o getting slammed). It also allows them to get feedback on features, that might or might not be included in the final product. Though as of the last couple of years, the original ideas behind beta have been diluted.
Fight Spammers!
There would be no lawsuit because if it was OSS it would be quit OK for MSN to do a review. This would lead to more people using it more bug reports and a better app. This is what OSS is all about. But to answer your question yes yes it would be. Why? Because free speech matters. What Adobe should have done and what I think the OSS community would do would be to explain and talk about the issues and the fact that it is very early in the release cycle open the beta ask for feedback get it and use it to build a really good product. Get on the cluetrain.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
www.studentaction.ca:8080/slashdot/ just the first page of the article, the rest were "404"'d.... enjoy!
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
What is gamut? Is that related to gamma?
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
You do NOT talk about Beta Club!
The second rule of Beta Club is...
You do NOT talk about Photoshop!
The third and final rule of Beta Club is... If this is your sixth major release of a product, your lawyers must shut the fuck up, because it's not going to be anything really new or amazing, and noone but inbred Mackintosh rejects are going to cream their pants over it.
DontBlow.com is an absolute good.
"Trade secrets do not lose protection if they are stolen or otherwise illegally obtained."
Once a trade secret is leaked, it's no longer a trade secret. If someone steals a trade secret, and it's later reclaimed, it's still a trade secret. But the moment they tell the secret to someone who didn't play a part in the theft, the info is no longer a trade secret, and the thief is liable for the damages. tbo's comment is correct if you replace "if they" with "when they".
In this scenario, the trade secret was leaked when Joe Beta Tester gave the details to MacNN, not later when MacNN posted them to the world.
And of course, once a trade secret is leaked, it's no longer a trade secret, not having the protections of copyright or patent law.
The recource of the injured party is to sue the person who leaked the trade secret, the beta tester. Even if MacNN was certain that it was a trade secret, it was no longer a trade secret when it was in their hands.
True, IANAL, but this info is straight from Pamela Samuelson's course on intellectual property law at UC Berkeley.
Of course, the situation is entirely different if Adobe can prove that MacNN stole the secrets themselves, i.e. that they swiped a copy from a beta tester without their consent.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
Who cares if they signed an NDA. I haven't signed an NDA, but that does not, by virtue of not signing, give me the right to publish trade secrets, regardless of how they came to me. The ONLY way that MacNN is safe is if Adobe released this information willingly to someone with whom they did not have an NDA with. This is also not about another company beating them to the punch. No one will be able to implement these features before Adobe can get it out. The issue is weather ANY information is proprietary. Real men don't use sigs.
Excuse me? People (including Adobe's competitors) have the right to know the details of commercial software that hasn't been publicly released yet? What gives you that idea? They developed it; it's their product. Surely they have the right to keep it to themselves if they want? If they do in fact have some innovative new feature, they don't want their competitors implementing it before they're ready to ship!
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If that image is formatted the way normal Adobe programs are, that should be the name of the user and the name of the company. The serial number would be below and is not there (I think that is how all betas go, not sure about that one though).
Oh please! That is complete BS. This PhotoShop version is just like the former ones. And that context sensitive toolbar near the top is just plain ripped off from Corel. Corel deserves a little more respect than it is getting lately.
Here Adobe, getting free PR, and they're suing! Unbelievable. Man oh man, that American suing system either has glitches in it or is majorly overused.
The fact that there's no innovation also must have had something to do with it. GIMP is the only graphics program I see real progress in. The Lens flares aren't perfect, the UI is very hard to use (IMO, I'm a Corel Guy), but it's a GOOD program. Go Gimp!
No, but they broke the licence/NDA. Adobe has mentioned that their terms don't allow disclosure of this kind.
Statements like your, "Free Speech is not absolute," always bug me. Another one I hear a lot (usually from Republic politicians) is something about people "abusing" their freedom of speech.
The way I figure it, the U.S. has that first amendment there for a reason -- to guarantee people freedom of speech. If U.S. laws can still deny people freedom of speech without a Constitutional amendment, then I really wonder why we have that amendment there in the first place...
-- dR.fuZZo
Consider the case that you simply were not aware that the work was GPL'd. Upon discovering that you were using it without permission, you'd be legally obligated to do one of two things. Cease use, or start distributing the source. Going forward, either would be legal. (And the original action of using the code was illegal; ignorance is no excuse)
The day after the AppleInsider article was released, Zdnet released something similar. The Zdnet article, while admittedly less in depth, did include screenshots and specific information on upcoming features in PS 6.
Taken from law.com:
"Adobe Systems Inc. has filed suit against Macintosh News Network for previewing software products still in development. Adobe says both the existence of the new versions of its products -- Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe ImageReady 3.0 -- and their features are trade secrets"
From the above, Macnn and Zdnet seem to be guilty of the same crime, no?
(side note: Just checked appleinsider.com. Within the last hour they were forced to take another article offline, this time by Microsoft. Tough day for Macnn, I guess.)
Ok now we got that out of the way. I read the opinion in the BlueOval case (it's here if you are interested - word perfect format not acrobat as despite the instructions otherwise).
While I agree that a lot of it is not related I think the key issue, the 1st ammendment, is applicable. Assuming that the publisher did not have a direct contract with Adobe (if he did all bets are off) then there can be no legitimate argument that allows a commercial entity to chill free speach. Letting adobe previal in this would have massivly chilling effect on large sections of the press and on investigative journalism in particular. As such on the face of it it's unconstitutional (I think P&G vs Bankers Trust is particularly applicable here)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
If the US Government can't prevent the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, how does Adobe expect to stop Mac NN from publishing this?
I'm confused now.....
Have you any idea what a NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT is? it is a legally binding agreement you sign, which revokes your right to disclose any information regarding the product. It is against the ideas of open-source, but then again, Adobe is trying to make money, not graduate from college.
Why would Adobe sue? Because someone clearly violated an NDA, and MacNN clearly knew it. What's the point of an NDA if nobody tries to hold people to it?
Duh.
--Jeff
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
What is gamut? Is that related to gamma?
Color gamut refers to the range of possible colors available in a given colorspace. There are colors that you can produce using red-green-blue phosphors that cannot be reproduced via cyan-magenta-yellow-black inks on paper (and vice-versa). Photoshop gives you the option of working in various color spaces (RGB, CMYK, HSV, etc.) depending on your eventual output destination. It can optionally warn you, when working in RGB, for example, whether you're using colors that can't be reproduced on paper.
The gov't isn't stepping in. There's no police action. No coercive steps are being taken. Adobe's saying "Don't publish ill-gotten material."
Save the geek-with-black-tape icon for stories that deserve it.
I don't know what the hell is going on over at Adobe, but they're getting harder and harder to deal with -- they're taking longer to fix bugs, they're ignoring some really serious bugs, and they're just generally letting their products lag.
My own suspicion is that they've become so obsessed with killing Quark that they've implicitly decided to let their own product line die in order to concentrate on InDesign.
. . . but then, as a Framemaker guy, I'm probably biased. So, to make a long story short, I believe that Adobe is suing MacNN out of spite, because MacNN has revealed that Photoshop 6 is going to be a pointless upgrade.
I have no
Here are the Links:
..........sig...........
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
And A mirror in the event they are removed Right here
I think Adobe ought to do a very important thing with Photoshop 6: Lower the freakin' price, gah dammit! The reason why Photoshop is so widely bootlegged is because Photoshop costs so damn much.
GIMP is lovely but it doesn't run on either Windows or (especially important) Macintosh, so it's not going to take any bread out of Adobe's mouth. On the Windows platform there is also Paint Shop Pro, which is more rationally priced.
And don't say ANYTHING about Photoshop LE! Photoshop LE is crippled in very insidious ways to make it almost useless for anything other than running a scanner.
Adobe can continue to sit idly by while the 733t W@rEz KiDdIeZ bootleg their products and sell the illegal copies on eBay to unsuspecting folks, or do the right thing and LOWER PRICES. I assure you, Adobe, you will get an AVALANCHE of people who want to "get legal" if only the price was right.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Microsoft has asked Apple Insider to remove the article about Microsoft Office 2001 & Word 2001. Read it Here
1. Photoshop is primarily a professional graphics package, not a recreational or end-user package, by virtue of its cost and relative complexity.
.psd formats in 6 to have features that .psd formats lack in 5.x and they can start hiring extra people to count the upgrade money.
2. Software with a primarily business focus gets upgraded as the business market it represents upgrades; compatibiity is the name of the game in the print and prepress business.
3. The graphic arts market is already saturated with Photoshop; there are few segments of the graphics market that can use Photoshop that don't already have it.
Therefore, I don't see how Adobe can lose no matter what they do or someone says about a pre-shipping product. If 6 comes out and its anything but a total disaster, people will start to upgrade to it and those upgrades will have a ripple effect adding even more upgrades as the marketplace moves to ensure compatibiity.
I think its a stretch to assume that there is a large body of _potential_ Photoshop buyers who would consider not buying Photoshop because 6 is about to be released. If you need Photoshop you're going to buy Photoshop; you simply can't participate in the business space it occupies without it (I know, there will be diehards that claim you can, but I bet they're not getting rich making whatever political point they're trying to make).
Also, it might even be *more* prudent to buy it *now* rather than wait and get a deal on 6 when it comes out, rather than pay a higher price when 6 finally does come out.
What *will* hurt Adobe are small, forward-compatible upgrades. These present no compelling reason for people who need to use it to upgrade. Tweak
There is also something which I've heard called the "Osborne Effect" (after the ill-fated lugable PC maker of the late 70s), which says that the more customers here about the next great thing, the less likely people will buy your existing products.
Of course, this never hurt Microsoft, who was telling anyone who would listen about Windows 2000 way back in 1997.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I am very disgusted toward most peoples response in Adobe asking the beta articles be removed. Lets all forget their efforts to keep the multiplatform releases of their products alive (Mac, Windows and the Future Linux products) Please don't remember their current Linux ports of Acrobat Reader and Framemaker. Forget that they ask a site to remove an article of a product they want to keep under wraps for the time being until shipment (as opposed to M$ vaporwaring a product 4 years before it's released -NT5). For a company that has made an effort to keep the multiplatform alive, the fact that a lot of you have instantly jumped on the 'that's not fair' attitude is absured. Is no company safe from wanting to protect a product until they feel it is ready for release or a proper review? Can a company protect what they feel is innovation in a product before a competitor spews vaporware rumors? -A.D. Shackelford We are all just packets in the Internet of Life - Illad@userfriendly.org
(This is my opinion only....not a statement of fact and I have no factual knowledge about the case other than what has been publicly reported. I am not a lawyer, etc)
This is never going to trial. Ever.
It will be settled outside of court, under a sealed settlement, amounting to nothing more than a pledge not to piss of Adobe anymore by carefully avoiding anything other than a whisper about new products until they are so close to introduction that it doesn't matter.
Why? Because it doesn't make sense to bring this to trial, there is no reason to believe that Adobe would even attempt to do so. Frankly, unless they can prove that AI actively engaged in industrial espionage, they are quite possibly setting
themselves up for a First Amendment showdown. They don't need that kind of press.
In my opinion, they have an incredibly weak case, enough to scare MacNN into a settlement, but nothing more.
To bankrupt a publication for sneak peeks and rumor mongering would probably result in an enormous amount of bad blood in the media, who would probably see themselves as possible future targets of software makers.
It is probably a bluff. However, it is one MacNN should not call.
The latest update concerning Office 2001 was pulled as a result of Microsoft ordering them to do so.
They just can't win!
Gee - doesn't anyone remember the Pamela Anderson
video tapes? It doesn't matter for freedom of
press that information was obtained illegaly.
*Ahem*
From the article:
Adobe says both the existence of the new versions of its products -- Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe ImageReady 3.0 -- and their features are trade secrets.
Emphasis mine.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
Big deal, to claim millions in damages makes this sound like a frivolous lawsuit and makes adobe look like a bunch of babies.
The first posters comments very true, if anything else, this became an announcment for their new product that money couldn't buy. Now everyone knows.
Finkployd
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/0005/alegal-v enus-in-furs.shtml
If you have access to Freenet, check out these nodes:
/macnn/photoshop/vif-fullscreen-small.jpg
/macnn/photoshop/vif-dropshaddow-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/alegal-venus-in-furs.html
/macnn/photoshop/alegal-venus-in-furs-part4.html
/macnn/photoshop/vif-web-photo-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/vif-spalsh-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/alegal-venus-in-furs-part3.html
/macnn/photoshop/vif-adobe-online-small.jpg
/macnn/photoshop/vif-print-options-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/alegal-venus-in-furs-part2.html
/macnn/photoshop/vif-save-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/vif-preset-man-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/vif-liquify-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/alegal-pet-wolverine.html
/macnn/photoshop/pw-fullscreen-small.jpg
/macnn/photoshop/pw-animation-small.gif
/macnn/photoshop/pw-splash-small.gif
Once again opensource licensing has been miserably confused with abandoning copyrights.
If anyone wants to do a OSS project that is closed until it is "ready" for an inital release they may.
This can be a complicated issue (like when Corel tried to do it, and did it wrong.) when there is dependency on other OSS ware. But if I want to release v0.0.0.001-pre0 of my pete-classic grep clone under the non-exclusive "post screenshots and suffer my wrath" license, then switch to GPL at v0.0.1 I may.
I would say it is common for projects to go through a closed incubation period.
The point is MY SHIT IS MY SHIT. Why do so many slashdotters feel that mob think absolves one of moral obligations.
Bottom line. If I share something with you under the EXPRESS AGREEMNET that you will KEEP IT TO YOURSELF and you don't you are a DISHONEST, LYING, PIECE OF CRAP. Even if emmett thinks you are cool.
-Peter
Slashdot cries out for open standards, then breaks them.
If hype about Photoshop 6 starts to ramp up six months before the intended start of their PR campaign, they'll have to deal not only with the "Well, I'll just wait for the new version now!" mentality but the "Gosh, it's taking them an awfully long time...I wonder what's wrong!" mentality, as well.
...what if one of the features released turns out to be poorly received by the community? Even if they scrap the entire feature, they'll still have to deal with the "Well, thank god they at least got rid of that stupid thing!" chatter that goes about. Certainly, it is a far better scenario for Adobe to never have to deal with such criticisms in the first place. That is what could end up costing them money--having to fight negative PR for a product that hasn't even come out of development yet.
.005% of the buying public that bases it's purchasing decisions on features mentioned in beta reviews on appleinsider (but not actually in the final product) could take billions.
Yeah, we know how all the pre-launch hype for win95 totally damaged sales and kept it from gaining market share...
Yeah, fighting the damage caused by the
look at what happened to Romero with Daikatana. The game really is a passable game, in spite of it's faults, but because it has been so closely watched for four years now, it's been branded as the laughingstock of the industry for being far too little, far too late.
Passable? First (timeframe, era, epoch, whatever) was so sucky that I just quit. I'd have to say that daikatana is a laughingstock because it stinks. I'm now using the cd as a coaster. (It was a burned copy, I didn't pay for the damned thing.)
Game crashed more than a little as well, and the low quality of ATI drivers for win2k doesn't explain all of that.
Basically, only companies that *KNOW* that their product sucks will take an action like adobe is taking.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
The main issue for most websites isn't so much the rights as the relationship. Sure, you can post NDA'd info to your heart's content, but you're not gonna get more NDA'd info if you do.
That said, it isn't always a clear-cut case of what your rights are. Journalists have gone to jail to keep their sources anonymous, which not all of them are willing to do. Still others know the law is on their side, but can't afford the time and expense to prove it in court. Like anything else in life, it's convoluted.
People are saying that because they may have pirated (ooh there's that word again) the beta, then they do not have to follow the terms of the licence and/or NDA.
What if someone else gave me a copy of Emacs without the GPL mentioned anywhere, could I distribute it in any form I wish?
Whatever Adobe's motivation, it is against the natural right of the press to freely publish whatever they want to. Since MNN has not (again, from what I have seen) waived their right to publish this information, that applies to this case. Adobe's action is wrong. That's all there is to it
it's green.
Well they got my interest!
I'm a Photoshop junkie and I want to see what the screenshots look like =)
Maybe macinsider just removed the links but not the images? Anyone see them and still maybe have the URLS in their cache?
Please oh please?
antidigerati
--
"Hello. My name is Joe. I'm a Calistogaholic." - Joe
The number one problem with lawsutes such as this is ignoring the level of lagitamacy...
:)
Now if a drunk in a bar clames to be a ninja can you sue him for fraud?
On the other hand if the same guy made the same clame in a TV ad he could be sued.
The reason? A drunk in a bar has no lagitamacy where as a TV ad needs to maintain a level of lagitamacy.
Now.... Someone says all kinds of crapola about someone on Usenet. A news reporter reports it. Who dose the person sue? Oh he sues the original usenet poster of course. The news reporter has a responsability to be clear and to check things out but a given usenet poster has no such restriction leaving it to the reader to varify any clames.
For this reason defemation should have no meaning on usenet but deathly restrictive on the news.
Now Slashdot clames to point to the news. So if Slashdot points to an artical that is wrong Slashdot is not at fault the artical source is.
But today tablods who have no credability and rummor sites who have minimal credability are being held to news media standards who have extream credablity. In the mean time the news is being held to a much lower standard.
Short of violating Adobes patents and copyrights a rummor media outlet should be allowed to publish reviews of betas..
In fact I think reviews of betas are a GOOD thing.... back in 1993/4/5 Lotus wouldn't publish Lotus 123 for OS/2 warp waiting for Windows 95 to be relase becouse they used the same interface.
That was bad enough as Lotus 123 was THE busness app that everyone wanted (the 1980s "MsOffice") but other software companys folowed Lotus's lead.
Lotus was protecting is apperence. They didn't want anyone else making a app that was similer to 123 in apperence...
This robbed Warp of it's early release. Like Linux hurt Win2K by being out in the early 1990s and ready LONG before Win2k Warp could have hurt 95 by being ready a few years ahead.
Worse.. it HURT Warp... It ment Warp was out long enough for the full extent of Warp's defects to be known at the time of Win95's release. This lead to a PR campaign clamming 95 as being bug free.
By the time Warp's bugs were fixed the PR damage had been done and 95 had the markeshare. It was only then that it became known just how defective 95 really was... those bugs would still be in place 2 years later to be fixed at the end of 1997 and released in 1998 (to be overshowed by Win98).
Had Lotus 123 gotten a Beta review Lotus would have realised they could lose the Os/2 platform to a 123 clone based on the beta...
They wouldn't have pulled that stunt...
I expect many software companys learnned from how Microsoft repaid Lotus for it's loyality to Windows (Microsoft Exel) and how IBM treated Lotus for it's disloyalty to OS/2 (IBM saved Lotus by buying it out).
I mean.. I expect no one repeated this stunt becouse of what happend to Lotus.
Even if no one PLANS to repeate Lotuses mistake they still fear beta reviews.
They also learnned from Atari and Nintendo...
Atari sold the same game console from the 1970's into the 1980's. Atari made upgrades but never discontinued the original VCS/2600 (Originally VCS later renamed 2600). This eventually killed Atari.
But Nintendo discontinued old machines and made the bulk of it's money from the game cartrages.
The continual upgrade only representing PART of Nintendos plan set the standard for the computer industry. Software companys frequently upgrade apps by adding features. This isn't wise.
It premotes feature frenzy.
But Photoshop has been around for years and Adobe may not be able to add any new features.
This leaves Photoshop 6 with being a code cleanup. Faster maybe, Easyer maybe. Better.. but not in the ways people expect.
The market now expects features. Adobe could give them that with Photoshop in the past becouse there was allways new features people needed.
We have come a long way sence painting pacages for the c64 bundled with a light pen or a touch tablet.
Now we can edit photos in ways that preveously required a photo lab (don't get paranoid photolabs consisted of peoples bathrooms in some cases.. the avrage person could still do this for less than a new computer system.. so we arn't talking about a new age of forgery).
Also the need for graphic images has expanded. Not just for print but for the Internet. A greater numer of people need computer generated graphics.
So this justifyed adding features. But now what. What features can you add to a pacage that dose everything?
This isn't the end of photoshop by a long shot but Adobe has so focused on new releases and upgrades they compleatly ignore the growing piracy problem.
It may be to late to contain. If Adobe dosn't convence the public that Photoshop 6 is more than just "faster cleanner code" they may lose sales to pireted copys of Photoshop 5.
Even if Photoshop 6 IS just faster cleaner code I would think it's worth the upgrade. Better software over features... allways gets my attention
But the avrage user dosn't think like me. They are programmed to want features and screw quality.
If I am right that 6 IS just faster cleaner code then I suggest Adobe PR that as THE feature. The ultimate feature. The greatest feature ever.
Make no mistake... not only will the open source community back you on this... So will some strong open source rivals.. such as Sun... who like open source rely on better stronger code over feature frenzy.
I don't actually exist.
No. If you just use GPL software without reading the license, then fine. It falls under the same resrictions as any copyrighted work. It would be pretty much the same as using closed source software in the eyes of the law - eg. can't copy it, or distribute it without the copyright holders' consent.
However, if you do read and agree to the GPL, you are granted ADDITIONAL rights to copy, modify, distribute etc. so long as you in turn make the resulting code free too.
So, if you break the GPL (eg. re-distributing closed source) without agreeing to the GPL, then you are committing standard copyright infringement. If you break the GPL, after agreeing to the GPL, then you are in breach of contract.
Credit goes to RMS - it's really a clever system.
Adobe would have practically no grounds to walk on if MacNN hadn't (in its usual fashion) plagiarized. It's not just that Photoshop 6 is pre-release... MacNN stole text from the internal docs line for line without crediting it. Big ol' blocks of text, too, paragraphs at a time, they were really moronic.
I can't remember the name, but didn't MacNN's old rumor site close down because they were accused of breaking NDA's?
There was some talk going round that they were VAR's, getting the information from Apple then posting the info on their web site.
Personally, I like getting information ahead of time, it helps me help my customers. I'm playing with MacOS X right now, not because I'm a developer, but because I need to be well versed in it when it ships.
http colon slash slash ps six mirror dot hypermart dot net
--
MacNN can still be liable.
If B steals A's trade secret, B is liable. If B then tells it to C, B is still liable. If C has reason to know/believe that it's a trade secret, then C is liable. If the info is given out to the public, it's status as a trade secret may be taken away, but they're still an issue as to liability for causing that status to be taken away.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that a gamut is simply a range, or region (since they're usually represented in more than 1 dimension) of colors. In this specific case, various devices are capable of representing different gamuts. There are some colors which are representable in CMYK which simply cannot be described in RGB (negative values for R, G or B channels, for instance), and vice-versa. Thus, if you make an image in RGB mode, and wish to print it on a CMYK device, it may be the case that it contains colors which cannot be represented on the target device. This is when a good imaging package gives you a gamut warning, along the lines of "Warning, the image contains colors which cannot be represented within the gamut of the target device".
:)
Also, gamut is fun to say. gamut gamut gamut.
-Adam
Emacs is for experts. Pico is for beginners. VI is a disease.
Well.. not neccicarily. I don't know if i agree with you or not because i don't know exactly what you mean.
The question becomes, _who is "they"?_ OK, so they should be held responsible. But who?
If someone who has entered into a beta liscence breaks the terms of that liscence, he has broken a contract and therefore the company he broke the contract with has every right to seek appropriate damages. [note that a statement like this does not neccicarily indicate i agree with shrinkwrap EULAs-- after all the way i see it, a beta tester is practically an employee of the company in question]
But if you ask me, if someone breaks a beta contract by giving out information, and someone else redistributes that information, the redistributor should __NOT__ be legally liable. They should have the basic right to release that information/screenshot, unless like they're violating copyright or something, and copyright does and should make exceptions for people "quoting" for review/journalism purposes.
I really believe MacNN should __NOT__ be held liable for violating a beta liscence unless they themselves violated the beta liscence. OK, i guess i'm a long-haired anti-IP extremist or something, but i see something inherently wrong with holding someone to the terms of a contract they were not parties to.
In short, the _person who wrote the article_, since they were the ones who entered and therefore the ones who violated the beta liscence, should be the one held liable, __NOT__ macnn. Macnn should be guiltless here and were if you ask me acting totally within their rights. The illegal act here should be the violation of the liscence, not the article about Photoshop 6.
Of course were the guy who wrote the article the liable one, i'd probably argue Macnn should pay his legal expenses out of common courtesy and because if they don't they'll never get another beta tester to trust them again, but it's all moot anyway because the whole thing will almost certainly be settled out of court.
Oh, btw, i thought this quote was funny from the article.
""It's rare that type of information is acquired by someone outside the company,"
MWAHAHAHAA!! Someone find the person who did this quote and introduce him to appleinsider.com, where you see things saying "we had screenshots of clarisworks 7 here, but apple legal made us take them down" on a regular basis.. "rare"? it's unbelievably common.
[and please do not mention MOSR in this place. MOSR _never_ says _anything_ that turns out to be accurate unless it can be attributed to the Thousand Monkeys With Typewriters Effect.]
But keep in mind the loophole these people find-- appleinsider almost invariably uses UNPAID, ANONYMOUS sources, therefore meaning that they themselves could not be said to be directly involved in the violation of the liscence; they just have some pictures and they're posting it. THe actual criminal is the source, who is anonymous and therefore never has anything done to them. The anonymous defence doesn't stop people from suing these sites, of course, but it should.
-mcc-baka
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
ImageReady also . Just don't forget to add "alegal-" to the filename of the page you wanna go to.
-my parents got laid and all i got was this shitty life-
There doesn't seem to be any evidence that MNN was under a NDA with Adobe. A representative of MNN claims [in the article on law.com at the top of the page] that the material which they used to publish their report was "in the public domain". This means that they retrieved it from the Internet or some other public source without having to agree to not disclose anything. If that's true, Adobe is wasting its time and making itself look like the greedy money sucker which it is. Photoshop is overpriced and really no more useful or functional than the Gimp [www.gimp.org] and Adobe is probably aware of that by now. Use Gimp, down with these corporate pigs!
I say that's a conservative estimate, nothing pisses of Wall Street more than shipping a new version of a flagship product. I bet their stock tanked after this leak.
The complaint says, "Adobe will suffer lost sales of products currently on the market.
Totally believable -- I only buy software if I'm sure that the company has cancelled all future development efforts.
You'd better believe that Adobe would lose sales. If hype about Photoshop 6 starts to ramp up six months before the intended start of their PR campaign, they'll have to deal not only with the "Well, I'll just wait for the new version now!" mentality but the "Gosh, it's taking them an awfully long time...I wonder what's wrong!" mentality, as well. If you don't think this sort of thing makes a difference, just look at what happened to Romero with Daikatana. The game really is a passable game, in spite of it's faults, but because it has been so closely watched for four years now, it's been branded as the laughingstock of the industry for being far too little, far too late.
This sort of thing does make a difference. People judge things from the moment they first see them, and first impressions are hard to change; you don't want public eyes on a major product release before it's good enough to be seen by the public, plain and simple. Say what you will about the silliness of it all, but if it weren't for the fickleness of the consumer, they wouldn't even need to worry about these things in the first place.
Remember, kids, it's only premarital if you plan on getting married.
Actually I think they would be acquired illegally, because until the NDA participant gives the information to macnn there has been no illegal act. The illegal act was in giving the information out. Thus the transfer of secrets to macnn was illegal. Whether they did anything illegal is questionable and will be an issue for the courts to decide.
Of course you have that right - this is free speech. Now, if you had a contractual relationship with Adobe and your speech violates the terms of that contract, you may end up in court. But if you were to tell me a trade secret, I'm under no obligation to keep it a secret. It's Adobe's job and your job to keep their secrets secret, not mine.
The right to publish a work is protected by copyright law, and the right to use a particular technology is protected by patent law. If you want to protect the right to pass on ideas, some sort of contract is needed, and can only be enforced on signatories to the contract. So there's nothing to stop a third party from telling people what Photoshop 6 is like, displaying screenshots, etc.
The responsibility for keeping proprietary information secret falls on the company, not on the public at large. The government only supports certain kinds of protection for IP - patents, copyrights, and trademarks. If you don't want to register your work under those protections, it's up to you to keep your lips zipped. It's certainly not the fault of the press if one of the people you tell secrets to isn't very trustworthy.
IANAL, of course.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
....and another check mark for opensource.....(hehe)
linux=punk rock
I'm not familiar with trade secret law, but with trademark law, if someone infringes on your copyright, you have to notify them, and then if they don't stop using your trademark, you can sue them. If they stop immediately, you can't sue them.
Does the same apply to trade secrets? AppleInsider removed the offending content last week, as soon as they were contacted by Adobe.
On the other hand, the singer Billy Joel® gets around this by putting a registered trademark symbol next to his name every single time it appears anywhere (look for it the next time you see his name). This serves as notification of trademark, so if someone uses his name to print bootleg t-shirts or something he can immediately take them to court.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Of course there's also the issue of who wrote the preview article. And how exactly was is done. If someone at macnn wrote the article without laying their hands on the software in question, got some screen shots from a low ethics individual, and the printed the result, there may be a defamation recourse.
If they wrote the article based upon an acquired copy from a beta tester, then they are in copyright violation.
If they are the beta tester, then it would be obvious that they are breaking their agreement with adobe to keep quiet about what they see.
Let's hott the messengers, let's just all keep new journalists on egg sheels that's good for democracy. What next CNN will sue all sites that use the NN trademark?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Somehow I doubt MacNN was a beta seed site for Adobe. If someone else broke their NDA, then Adobe needs to prove that they did it, but having received the information, MacNN was under no obligation to not publish the leak, nor are they obligated to reveal their source.
If Adobe can determine in another way who violated the NDA, or if MacNN chooses to reveal it (doubtful), then Adobe can sue for damages from breach of contract.
(IANALY)
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
Unless Bhatia (of MacNN) is telling the truth and he came by the feature guide for PhotoShop 6.0 legally, Adobe is perfectly within their rights to sue the pants off MacNN. It's illegal to publish trade secrets which were illegally obtained (as would be the case if a disgruntled employee or ex-employee emailed them to MacNN).
OTOH, if Adobe screwed up and had the feature guide publically available on their website or something else equally stupid, MacNN is in the clear.
That's a very important point, and I imagine the court case will hinge upon that.
Adobe would LOVE it if they ran an article on Photoshop 6 if it was very good, but they obviously have as little enthusiasm and confidence in it as I do.
Although Adobe does have a right to sue - they now MAY lose product sales because of this (no one cares about Photoshop 6 because its nothing new), I think that they should get tossed out because the people have the right to know how a preview release operated.
Besides, what's the difference between a pre-release review that loses sales and a post-release review that loses sales? Not much. It would happen either time, and the only people that would buy the program on the day of its opening (before the poor reviews would come out) are the ones that would buy it anyway, even after the poor reviews come out.
On a sidenote - go gimp!
And another sidenote - this is the most pirated program in the world, EVER. Adobe should be doing other things in the legalroom. :)
Thanks if you're still reading
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Uh, if no one at MacNN signed a nda, or were actually part of the betatest, etc, then how can they be held lible? I mean, if they never agreed not to post info about the beta software, then how can they be held accountable for the schmuck who gave the info to them?
IANAL, but IIRC, corporations are considered "persons" under the law. That is what allows them to be held liable for actions, sued, etc. IT is also why usually when corporations act maliciously, the corporation is sued, and the people who were involved in making the decision cannot be punished except by the corporation (which in some particularly nasty cases, like the Dalkon Shield debacle, has given them a raise or at worst forced them into early retirement with a large golden parachute.)
While I think that Adobe has solid legal ground to sue in a situation such as this (and will probably win), I'm surprised that they would decide to sue. I've always thought that these sort of "sneak peak" reviews, authorized or not, have increased the hype about a product and as such probably helped sales. True, they might think that they are exposing their new features to the competition, but this probably isnt much of a worry in this case, since photoshop dominates the market.
I'm not saying that rumor sites are right to be doing these, but I guess it surprises me that Adobe takes much issue with it.
-Kyle
Actually, it very much does matter for freedom of press.
However, IIRC, in the P.A. tapes case, the ruling was such that the publisher (the video-tape distributor) had a very reasonable belief that tapes were authentically owned by the person who sold them. Of course, the person who stole the tapes in the first place is still civilly liable for that.
This is the key in cases like that - all the publisher has to do is prove that a reasonable person would believe that the source was providing information that wasn't illegally obtained. And the courts have given fairly wide lattitude on this issue (that is, they've erred on the side of the press).
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
#include "ianal.h"
As I understand things, if Acme Software leaked Adobe trade secrets to MacNN in violation of an NDA, and MacNN published them, both Acme and MacNN are liable. Trade secrets do not lose protection if they are stolen or otherwise illegally obtained.
That's exactly my point. The illegal act is giving the info, not receiving it.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
I really doubt Adobe will win because this is extremely similar to when Ford Motors sued Blue Oval News for printing secret car designs on their website. Even though the car designs were secret and probably stolen by an employee who had signed an NDA, the website won.
I know that if I spent 5 years developing a technology, was just putting the final touches on it, waiting to release it, and some spy from a big company, say Microsoft, but I don't care if it was Virginia Systems or my 3rd cousin, took my code, and put it into their product, before mine was released, I would be ultra-pissed.
This may be so, but if it's a journalist rather than a competitor, first amendment protections apply. If Appleinsider decides to fight the suit, Adobe will have to prove that they aided in the theft of the trade secret.
Correct. Except that AppleInsider didn't break any such express agreement. Somebody else did.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
The word "gamut" has its origins in Medieval music theory... In the Ancient Greek system, the lowest possible pitch is represented by the symbol gamma. Medieval theorists, when devising solfege ("do, a deer," etc.) used the term "ut" instead of do. "gamma ut" was the lowest possible version of "ut" in the current hexachord system, created by placing "ut" at the bottom of the possible range. (it's a really convoluted system) "gamma ut" was eventually contracted to gamut, and used to represent the entirety of the music range, and then went from there. Tinctoris
Maybe. But maybe you're wrong and the site did ... well, did some kind of "ziviler ungehorsam" - they removed the links, but left the pages somewhere.
Nice trick, because Adobe's legal team would sue them for linking. But now they don't. Will they now sue slashdot? Well, call them and we'll see.
Anyway. The 6.0 software doesn't exist. But if there is no spoon use the frok - use GIMP :).
* Smile. People will wonder what you think. *
I'd be willing to be that this is a calculated move on the part of Adobe to drum up free publicity for Photoshop 6 at the expense of (or, for the paranoid, in collusion with) MacNN. Sure, it looks bad to us, but don't forget that the general public seems to think that IP laws are cool.
C'mon -- when the pages are still up at AppleInsider under slightly changed filenames, and someone posts the changed URLs to freaking Slashdot, which is of course a hush-hush underground site that nobody reads (where nobody == MAX_LONG, anyway), can you really believe the official story?
I've long suspected that "rumor sites" devoted to games and to other commercial, closed source software and hardware are basically paid shills for the industry, but rarely are they as ham-handed as this.
And yes, I like italics. John Dvorak is my spiritual master.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Look at this screenshot from the article - It shows the splash screen of "Pet Wolverine" (Imageready 3.0) with the words "Licensed to: AppleInsider" So someone using the AppleInsider name had to fill out everything required to get their name there, which I suspect includes the whole registration and "I will not relase this info" terms.
So the way it works out is that Adobe sues the beta tester. The beta tester loses. The beta tester then goes and sues Appleinsider for inciting him/her to violate their NDA. Or something.
At least that's how it would work in this day and age.
I just finished reading it, and didn't see anything all that negative about the article at all. In fact, it lists many improvements, although, certainly nothing to warrant a major upgrade in version - more like v5.6, but then again, 5.5 should've been 5.1. Whatever.
At the end of the article, in fact, it says:
--- quote ---
The release appears to be solid, and packs a number of additional refinements that are much to specific to detail in this report.
--- endquote ---
Not exactly a negative review, by any stretch of the imagination.
It's an article. Not a legal brief. I wouldn't be surprised it they paraphrased Adobe's position. The fact that they are close to releasing is a trade secret. A competitor knowing that Photoshop 6 is about to come out allows them many possibilities to gain an advantage. Everything from pushing the release date on their competing product to advertising their competing product to cut into Adobe's revenue.
Hope MacNN wins
yeah, I like MacNN and all the dirt, gossip & rumor pages just as much as the next guy. Unfortunately, it comes down to intellectual property.
I can see 2 main reasons why Adobe would be pissed:
I like hearing new bits and pieces of stuff that's yet to come down the pike, but keep it real folks, and don't turn next year's super-cool stuff into vaporware.
- passion
If you want people to follow your rules, then you are going to have to follow theirs...
Now, if there is a loop-hole, well, then you can pick which side to cheer for when it goes to court to be argued...
BlackNova Traders
Did MacNN sign a non-disclosure agreement(NDA)? If they did, then they are probably in violation. It is one thing to dislike a company for hijacking your software and hardware and using unfair business practices, it is another thing entirely to hate them for trying to protect their product's competitive edge by not telling other companies what features are in it before it even comes out! I know that if I spent 5 years developing a technology, was just putting the final touches on it, waiting to release it, and some spy from a big company, say Microsoft, but I don't care if it was Virginia Systems or my 3rd cousin, took my code, and put it into their product, before mine was released, I would be ultra-pissed. Plus, NDA's are serious business. If you are not going to be a good business partner, you won't continue to be a business partner.
Eh...
And another sidenote - this is the most pirated program in the world, EVER. Adobe should be doing other things in the legalroom.
My former employer bought Photoshop 5 on ebay (I know, I know, DUH) and when we received it, we saw it was very definitely a copy. So he called Adobe and tried to report it. They did nothing. ??? Apparently they're not too worried about piracy, just initial sales, which is what this leak may have hurt.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I worked for a software company that made consumer type publishing programs and clip art. They were *extremely* tight lipped about anything about upcoming products. It was entirely need-to-know. The people testing the clip art packages wouldn't be told what the final number on the page would be (x thousand images inside!!!). Customer service would be told about it about a day before it hit the shelves. In one case, someone called for tech support on a product and tech support told him they couldn't support it because they hadn't received word that it had been released.
Now, photoshop isn't in as competetive a market as clip art or Print Shop type programs. It's not like someone is going to be able to take any action based on knowing about Photoshop 6's features a month early. But maybe they can. Their competitors (which would be....ummm... still thinking...) will be able to say "here's where photoshop 6 is weak. Concentrate on making this feature kick ass. Add in this little tweak." They'll have a little extra time to react. And that's why Adobe requires NDAs for beta testers. They can't do much, but they can decide where to concentrate their last minute features effort. They can kill off a feature they are having trouble with if they see that photoshop won't have it either. They can decide what to highlight on the box. They can decide how to market it.
What, do you think that there are people who sell something that competes with Photoshop isn't just drooling over this article? Jasc Paint Shop Pro will be looking at this. The makers of Debabelizer will be reading this with a magnifying glass.
Imagine this situation: you're releasing a publishing program soon. Your competitors are as well. You learn through some source like this that the competitor will be including 1200 different greeting card designs. You had planned for 1000 in your product. What do you do? Obviously, you work the designers overtime or you push the date a little bit, because you *can't* release something that's inferior to the competition.
--Kevin
A similar story is running over at MacSlash. I just discovered the site and it is looking good. Their insights and comments appear quite relevant. Does anyone know much about it? I figure it is like Slashdot for Mac users. Very cool.
Note: IANAL, and this information comes from talking with several IP and publishing lawyers. It applies only inside the USA.
Newspapers (and others) cannot publish anything they receieve. Legally, a publisher is responsible for checking the validity of the source, and cannot hide behind the "oh, well, my such-and-such source said so" shield.
Publishers (and reporters, too) have the following responsibilities when receiving information from a source:
Under number 1 and 2, the publisher is criminally liable - instance number 1 is a felony in most places, 2 is a misdemenor. Essentially, in the first you are actually committing a crime, and the second you are an accessory-after-the-fact.
Instance 3 and 4 fall into civil areas (as can 1, in addition to criminal), and generally are covered in Libel and Slander laws.
Trade secrets that are obtained by a third party, who then illegally reveals them to a publisher, which publishes them, are most certainly covered by #2. However, the sticking point is as always the possibility that the publisher can make a case that it reasonably believed that the information was obtained by the third party legally. The previous brouhah here over the MS Kerberos Spec is a good case for the latter - there is a considerable case for the publisher believing that the poster (an AC) could have bypassed the legalities requiring non-disclosure, and thus, could legally post the article.
Please, folks, two things:
This isn't about censorship
Free Speech is not absolute
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Sorry, GPL specifically states that use is beyond its scope. The only way you can violate GPL is by redistributing without source, or creating closed-source derivations of GPL work.
The issue here isn't censorship or free speech at all. An agreement was made between Adobe and Person X, and Person X violated the terms of the agreement.
That's just it. Person X violated the terms of the agreement. Not MacNN, which never signed that agreement. All Adobe has the right to do is ask MacNN to pull the article, and demand that MacNN provide contact information for their source. Then they can sue the source, who's the one that violated the agreements.
But honestly, I almost wonder if a class-action suit should be brought on the software industry by its users. We buy and pay for their software. They owe us a look into where the products we paid for, and will be paying for again to upgrade, will be going. So what if competitors know what features will be in your software; merely knowing of the existence of a feature doesn't help you in developing a counter-feature of your own. Software will always improve, and as the ones who are paying the software companies' bills we have a right to know what they're doing with our money.
Installed it a few days ago, seems to work just fine. Get it here.
If I don't agree with the GPL, and don't sign anything... I can break the license.
BlackNova Traders
A lot of people hear been badmouthing Adobe's motivation in trying to do something about this leak, but the truth is, it costs a company a bunch of money to think up features. Implementing them is often the easier portion of production.
Is it too much to imagine that enterprising managers at JASC software and Corel and the folks involved in the gimp can extrapolate these features and beat Adobe to market? Photoshop is dramatically more complex than any of these other products, simply by way of their pre-press precision and color modelling. But as most consumers only want web graphic editors, beating Adobe to market with their own refinements is a piece of cake.
This could be a major hit in the pocketbook, if you can imagine that ceratin features and refinements may sway the purchasing dollars of hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people. The managers at Adobe have an obligation to protect that potential revenue for the investors.
Those of you that can't see this are certainly not cut out to run a corporation. Not yet anyway. maybe after college you can cut your teeth on a small department, but don't run crying to momma when everything falls to crap around you. seen it a million times already (in other managers) and I'm not even 30 yet!!!
By way of disclaimer, I am not affiliated with Adobe or any other companies in this market, merely a critical, semi-aware observer.
:)Fudboy
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
This actually raises an interesting issue of moral obligation of the media. This Beta information doesn't really benefit the public in any way, but does seriously damage Adobe's competitiveness.
Certainly he has the constitutional right to publish this, but is it reasonable to be that inconsiderate to the company without any notable benefit to anyone besides the publication itself?
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Adobe says both the existence of the new versions of its products -- Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and Adobe ImageReady 3.0 -- and their features are trade secrets.
/. is going to be hit with another cease and desist order.
Really good trade secrets too. Let's see, Adobe has released Photoshops 1-5. They also employ a bunch of programmers. There are two possibilities:
1) they are working on Photoshop 6.
2) oh wait, there's only one possibility.
Real nice secret guys.
I hear MS is working on a new version of office - oops, now
Adobe requests the court to enjoin Macintosh News Network from soliciting or disclosing Adobe's trade secrets and for recovery of damages which it says "could conservatively amount to tens of millions of dollars."
I say that's a conservative estimate, nothing pisses of Wall Street more than shipping a new version of a flagship product. I bet their stock tanked after this leak.
The complaint says, "Adobe will suffer lost sales of products currently on the market.
Totally believable -- I only buy software if I'm sure that the company has cancelled all future development efforts.
Hear that? That's the last few shreds of my faith in human intelligence being stripped from me.
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
Assuming what I know about Trade Secrets is correct, isn't this information now in the public domain, and Adobe is should just go home and not cry over spilled milk?