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Apple Defendants Interviewed
evands writes "There's an interview with Desicanuk, one of three named defendants in the Apple lawsuit alleging illegal distribution of a Tiger developer build, and Nessence, one of two administrators of MacTKA, the Mac BitTorrent tracker site where the build was initially posted, up at DrunkenBlog. The interview tells the whole story as a press release can not, from how Apple determined the kids to sue, to lawyers knocking on doors on Christmas Eve, and beyond. 'Collateral Damage' is a fascinating read which humanizes the whole messy situation."
Maybe it's time to look at OS marketshare to see how the different strategies work out.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
What an idiot. This interview will become evidence against him.
When charged with a criminal or civil offense:
1. remain silent;
2. talk to an attorney;
3. if case unresolved, goto 1
Of course in the United States you do not have the right to an attorney if charged with a civil offense.
You also do not have the right to be silent at trial, unless your statement may tend to incriminate you.
Note that in the above program, there is no "grandstand / justify / brag to a blogger" statement.
The guy lied, violated his NDA and posted valuable copyrighted material which he did not own to a public site. Let him twist in the wind.
When I mentioned it to a few people in various IRC chat rooms, they had asked if they could get a copy too. I made the foolish assumption that since I wasn't a developer, and I had a copy that it would be ok if I shared it with 5 or 6 fellow mac fanatics.
And then he's surprised when it escapes out in the wild. Don't they teach kids the safe sex warnings anymore? You're not just sharing with all your friends, you're sharing with all their friends too.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Whence came this sense of entitlement?
You can't release those to people outside the company. He should be the one targetted in this suit, not some poor college student. He should face disciplinary action (and hopefully fired!). Keeping this guy around will just mean it will happen again! He has no problems handing out seed-keys, as mentioned in the article.
Apple really should fire the dev.
Well, for all we know, maybe they already have. But really, this case is like breaking the bottle after the Genie has left it.
First: Don't "assume it is OK to (insert stupid action here)" ASSUME? Didn't you READ anything Apple states about being an ADC member, or in the READ ME, etc???
Second: As soon as you catch wind that somebody, anybody is making legal noises concerning you, RUN DON'T WALK TO OBTAIN LEGAL COUNSEL!!!
Finally: Don't frikkin blather on endlessly to some blogger, proving how FSCKING STUPID you really are. What a collection of idiots.
BTW: The first words out of an attorney's mouth would be essentially "STFU."
Yet another scientific theory proven correct.
This isn't, as the story states "a fascinating read which humanizes the whole messy situation" unless stupidity and ignorance are the true measure of "Humanity."
so he goes through all the trouble of finding out about ADC to get the seed, but as soon as the torrent is disabled by a mod, he "assumes" that the file is messed up and deletes it? sounds more like he deleted it because he got fearful in getting an indirect confirmation that leaking it was wrong...
It always amazes me how Apple gets treated on /.
/. crowd, that would tear any other company apart if it engaged in anything similar.
Let me play devils advocate here for a minute.
We have a company here that's suing 21 year old mac fans for participating in the illegal sharing of a beta build of their OS.
We have a company here that's extracting information from someone they are about to sue under false pretence.
We have a company here that's suing a side aimed at their fans because the site spreads some rumors about new products.
We have a company that refuses to use an open standard, or even simply to license their technology to other companies, in order to leverage the huge market share they have in one area to boost sales in an other area.
We have a company that is heavily promoting software patents and is heavily involved in fileing trivial software patents.
We have a company here that is taking open source technology for their new browser, but then refuse to give the changes they make back in a way that might be useful to the original open source developers.
And yet it seems, Apple is still loved by the
Calling it "stealing" is weaseling language used by people who want to make something relatively harmless seem like a serious crime worthy of serious punishment.
I hate to blow your mind, but it isn't.
In a criminal case, the prosecution has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of the criminal offense, which may include intent (mens rea), and various components of criminal acts (actus reus). In the U.S., the criminal defendant has a fundamental right to a jury trial (but can choose to waive that right).
In a civil case, the plaintiff is the master of her claim. If the plaintiff demands a jury trial on all issues, it's not like the defendant can waive the jury demand that the plaintiff has made. If all of the facts are agreed by both parties, and the facts as agreed constitute civil liability, the plaintiff will likely move for summary judgment - which basically tells the judge "look - we don't have to go to the jury, because according to these facts, we've satisfied our burden of proving that he did what we said he did, and nothing that the defendant could show would make any difference."
There is no jury nullification or "nice guy" exception or "oops, I didn't MEAN to do it" way out in strict liability.
Adding to my earlier post, because he could be liable for criminal copyright violations or possibly other criminal sanctions, he probably does have a fifth amendment privilege with respect to what he's done. He needs to get a competent lawyer.
Maybe it would not have turned out differently the following way, but at least you cost them more time and resources doing so:
Before I found out I was being sued, they(lawyers) called me up to let me know they were doing an investigation. To be perfectly honest, the individuals who contacted me were polite and respectful. When I asked them if they were suing me, they let me know that if I cooperate, that Apple has a history of being a generous company.
I answered all the questions they asked regarding how I got the torrent, how long I had seeded it for etc. I was honest and as helpful as I possibly could be.
Wrong. Lawyers are not your friend. Their job is to help prosecute you.
We were given 'Door #1': "If you don't co-operate we'll sue you". We replied and upon replying received 'Door #2': "We understand it's P2P, but if you don't co-operate we'll sue you" or 'Door #3': "We are all adults here, cooperate and we assure you we won't sue all your users but we can't tell you what might happen to the uploaders".
How about the front door? You don't have to answer anybody's questions for any reason. In order for you to "co-operate" they need 2 other things:
1. An officer of the law holding a warrant
2. Your lawyer present.
This is a classic case of citizens giving up thier rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Even the Canadian has rights on foreign American soil. These guys just gave up all those rights, did the Apple lawyers and police officers jobs for them, and now they are getting sued!
The links seem to indicate that Apple is in fact returning changes back to the KDE folks, just not in the format they want. Many of the posts also allude to there not being sufficient resources in the KHTML group to keep up with Apple's changes. Well, that's really not Apple's fault - it looks like Apple is in fact upholding their end of the bargain. If this isn't a correct interpretation, could someone please clarify?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Thank you. I'm a member of Apple's OS X Update Seed program, so I get seeded with updates to 10.3 to test and report back on before released. Most recently, I was testing 10.3.7. But I was invited to that seed by Mike Bombich because of my work with ActiveDirectory in my school's environment. Do I run around leaking information about those seeds or the actual seeds themselves? No. I was cordially invited by Mike Bombich into the program and signed an NDA. If I leaked information on the updates or the software itself, it would reflect badly on Mike. And what would I gain from such a leak? Nothing. I'd have a little closet prestige. Whoop-die-do.
This guy took advantage of a favor that a friend did for him and distributed the Tiger beta to other people. Whoever he got the beta from probably didn't want him giving it to five or six other people. That's a breach of trust between him and the company a well as him and his friend. Now his buddy could potentially get in trouble for it. He's caused a huge fucking mess because he figured he'd play Robin Hood. Well, now he's getting what came to him. Maybe now he'll take implied trusts and legal documents with his signature on them more seriously.
You know what? Just because you have a *right* to remain silent doesn't mean you should always do so!
Perhaps there is sometimes far greater value in getting things "off your chest" and publicly clarifying a situation before the rumor-mongers go wild, twisting it into something completely different than it is?
When you're just a student with limited finances and limited personal property, you already *know* there's not too much financial damage a corporation can do to you. (Can't get blood from a turnip, as they say.) So where's the only *true* damage coming from in a case like this? Usually, your personal credibility and respect - if you remain silent and let people run around the Internet tossing out wild accusations about you.
In fact, letting the public know the true nature of this type of situation can prove to be your best "counter-measure" against the corporation. Any sympathy you earn may do you no good in the courtroom directly, but it very well MIGHT influence the future purchasing desicions others make. (EG. If you used to support Apple products because of a belief they were a more "moral" company than competitors like Microsoft, maybe now, you'll change your mind?)