Woz, Others Ask Apple To Go Easy On Tiger Leak

tabkey12 writes "Drunkenbatman posts this impressive article with a pointed quote from Apple co-creator Steve Wozniak and 24 others from all parts of the Apple Software world, criticising Apple's stance against a 23-year-old pre-med student, desicanuk, who distributed a pre-release Tiger build over a popular Mac Bittorrent site. There's also an interview with desicanuk on drunkenbatman's site. (Original Slashdot article here.)"

Comments

Re:Credibility

[HeghmoH]

I don't know about all of them, but Unsanity is one of the most well-known Mac software companies out there. Delicious Monster is pretty well-known too, although their fame is rather recent and it remains to be seen if it'll last. People must take names like these pretty seriously, because the companies seem to be doing reasonably well.

Re:Apple's Dilema

[1000101]

"But Apple do not really sell software at all..

What? Apple had $213 million in 1Q05 in software sales, and estimates $1 billion in software revenues for this year. And you think Apple doesn't really sell software??

Re:Intellectual Property

[Paradise Pete]

it's more the breaking of confidentiality with his employer that should be the issue here

He doesn't work for Apple. He's a medical student.

Re:Woz is too much of an idealist

[Nexum]

Woz is not a billionaire.

About Steve Jobs....

[10Ghz]

Off-topic, I know but... I was just reading the article about Woz on Wikipedia. It contained this interesting piece of info:

Woz left Apple for good on February 6, 1985, nine years after setting up the company. Wozniak then founded a short-lived venture called CL9 which developed home remote control switches. Out of spite, Jobs threatened his suppliers to not do business with Wozniak or risk losing Apple's business. Wozniak was able to find suppliers other than the ones he had worked with for years, but was disappointed in his former friend's bitterness.

I never knew that Jobs was such an ass. Egomaniac? Sure! Asshole? it seems so.

Re:What's his defense?

[Vellmont]

He doesn't need to defend himself. He actually did everything he was accused of. Hiring a lawyer is simply throwing good money away.

You obviously don't understand the civil system. This isn't about guilt or innocense, it's about damages and liability. This isn't a criminal trial where a judge/jury determines if you're innocent or guilty of a crime. This is a trial where the plaintiff says how much monetary damage they had inflicted on them, and the defendant has to defend against the amount of damage, liability for that damage, etc. The lawyer would take apart all the ridiculous "damage" claims that Apple will likely fabricate, and/or argue the defendant isn't liable for said damages.

federal law, not state

[hawk]

I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you get your legal advice on slashdot, your psychiatric problems are more serious than your legal ones.

That has *absolutely* nothing to to with the state.

The bankruptcy code definces certain types of debts that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, including debts for

1) support payments
2) recent taxes
3) intentionally caused harm
4) fraud
5) student loans for several years
and many others

Liability for disclosing the information in this case would be far-fetched. *HOWEVER*, if he "induced" the employee to break the NSA, that could be the tort of interference with contract, and could come under the intentionally caused harm category.

hawk, esq.

modify that last paragraph

[hawk]

That phrasing should be for the macrumors litigation, not this one.

Uploading it to share it would certainly be an intentional copyright violation, no matter how many he expected to download it (1 or 1,000,000). It's not the general liability, however, that would be nondischargeable. It's the intent to cause the harm that matters.

hawk, esq.