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."

Comments

Go figure...

[Sheetrock]

Some companies view a buggy leak as an opportunity to generate free buzz about the final product. Some view it as an opportunity to use the legal system to bludgeon extreme enthusiasts that have allegedly crossed the line.

Maybe it's time to look at OS marketshare to see how the different strategies work out.

Re:Go figure...

[computerme]

"alleged"

from the link:

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.

As to the question, did I do exactly what Apple is accusing me of doing? I did share the file. So in that regard yes. But there was no malicious intent.

STFU.

Remain SILENT

[spywarearcata.com]

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.

Re:Remain SILENT

[Rick Zeman]

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


He's only an idiot if he's trying to weasel out of it and plead not guilty. By his account, he's accepting responsibility for his actions and thus not an idiot. Hard concept to grasp, I know....

Re:Remain SILENT

[spywarearcata.com]

Distinguish "accepting responsibility" from "letting yourself be at the mercy of the plaintiffs."

You don't have to the do the second in order to accomplish the first. A person with more intelligence and experience might realize that during an emotional situation one's judgment might not be the best, and that even though the person was a central player in the situation he might not know the entire relevant facts and law to judge one's own liability or guilt or to make conclusions about the situation.

THAT is why you remain silent. Not because you are avoiding responsbility for your acts.

Re:Remain SILENT

[Sanity]

What an idiot. This interview will become evidence against him.

Yeah, how dare some kid not know how to respond when a multinational corporation decides to sue him. They really need to start teaching that in Elementary School.

(Does anyone else remember when that would be considered a joke rather than a realistic suggestion?).

Re:Remain SILENT

[Ath]

Apple's suit against the Tiger leak defendants is a civil lawsuit. It does not involve criminal charges. Therefore, there is no right to remain silent to prevent self-incrimination.

Close, but wrong. You are correct that, in relation to the purely civil matter, there is no Fifth Amendment right.

However, you always have your Constitutional right against self-incrimination for criminal prosecution. In this situation, while the lawsuit is a civil one, you can still exercise your Fifth Amendment right if the information being sought would expose you to criminal prosecution. In this case, that is definitely the situation as copyright violations can also be criminally prosecuted.

What's Messy?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's Messy?

[NormalVisual]

Saying he's sorry and won't do it again doesn't mitigate the damage Apple has suffered at the hands of this well-meaning idiot. If he's of legal age to engage in a contract, then he's also old enough to read what he's agreeing to, and ignorance is no defense.

Apple was *not* passing out the software "for free" - the seed key he used to obtain the build was not part of his free ADC membership, and was sent to him by another idiot that chose not to honor *his* NDA. He had no legal right to the build to begin with - the ADC memberships that get you pre-release versions of stuff cost a fair bit of money, and he's gone on record as saying that he was trying to find a way to get his hands on Tiger without actually having to pay for it. Once having gotten that, he proceeded to give it to some friends. For him to say that "I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that" paints him either as disingenuous, or someone that just doesn't have a clue. Neither is a particularly good quality to see in someone that wants to be a doctor.

How did THAT happen?

[Saxerman]

What stood out for me was:

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.

he probably knew what he was doing is wrong...

[jxyama]

>After about 3 hours of seeding, a Mod for the site disabled the torrent. I assumed that there must have been something wrong with the file I uploaded, so I stopped my seed and deleted the file. I didn't even get a chance to install it.

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...

How it should have gone down

[hammock]

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!

Re:Go figure...Respect, be damned.

[Durandal64]

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.