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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.
Releasing a Tiger into the wild is never a good idea, even if you're an experienced Safari user.
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.
"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."
And maybe some have so little respect for others that they'll violate the rules at every turn. Would it really have killed the Mac community to wait?
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.
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...
For $500 per year anyone who agrees to follow Apple's ADC NDA agreement has access to 5 "Software Seed Keys". Anyone can join can and obtain an ADC account for free and what are called "assets" can be passed to other ADC account holders in the same company. That way a company can have 5 developers directly downloading prerelease software with only 1 membership.
There are other, less secretive assets such as the right to buy a Mac system at a discount, albeit for development purposes and not for resale.
Apple also has much more tightly controlled seeds to key developers, these exist but the procedures and those who are involved are a tightly guarded secret. They used to be only distributed on physical media by private carrier.
The lawsuit involved the regular seeded software only, not the uber-secret stuff. To my knowledge that has rarely, if ever, made it into the wild.
The parent here is somewhat correct, but I feel like I should clarify:
The fifth amendment prohibition against compelled testimony only applies to criminal liability, and only applies to "persons."
If an elicited response in a civil case might tend to incriminate you in a criminal action, a witness can invoke the privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to answer that question. Remember, though, that if you waive the privilege, it is lost forever - so if you're not sure, SHUT YOUR MOUTH and find a way to consult with a lawyer. If you're at a loss for how to get an attorney, many state and local bar associations have lawyer referral services that are free to the public, usually with a free or cheap 30-minute interview or something.
In a civil case, just because a statement may tend to make you more liable for money damages in a civil action doesn't mean that you can make a blanket refusal to testify if called as a witness by the opposing party. To do so would not only nullify your defense and force the court to take your opponent's views at face value, but would also mean that individuals could escape liability in most cases by simply refusing to acknowledge it.
Also important is that civil liability has varying degrees of standards of proof, with ultimate responsibility generally relying on a preponderance of the evidence - both sides have an obligation to plead their cases, and the factfinder decides what "truth" is. Criminal liability, however, requires that the prosecution prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The criminal defendant can remain silent and the burden for the prosecution remains unchanged.
However, even in a criminal case, you can't use the defendant's silence as both a sword and a shield; once the defendant has chosen to take the stand and testify, they can't choose to only answer questions that would tend to prove their innocence.
I know I went a little overboard, but I always see people confusing the fifth amendment privilege and thinking that they can apply it where they can't. Just wanted to clarify.
Well that one's just a lie.
English is easier said than done.
Not to mention the fact that when GCC 4 is released with Objective-C++ support (by the way, the Apple developers have been very helpful in modifying their GCC changes so that they can be incorporated into the main trunk) we are likely to see at least one GNUstep web browser based on webkit.
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