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Apple Settles with Tiger Leaker
The Hobo writes "CNet is carrying a story about Apple reaching a settlement with one of the Tiger leakers, 22-year-old Doug Steigerwald. The terms of the settlement were not released, but it was said that money will be paid to Apple. To quote Doug, 'As a member of Apple's Developer Connection program I received a pre-release version of Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 'Tiger' software, which I promised to keep confidential, instead, I disseminated it over the Internet, and thousands of unauthorized copies of Apple's software were illegally distributed to the public'"
means that you won't disclose anything. Or give away a few thowsand copies of licenced, un-released software... huh.
What was the tiger leaking?
All humor aside. You have to assume when you receive a beta copy of something and signed an NDA there is some way for them to track you.
What's sad here is, he likely got pressured into giving up a copy or two to some friends, who probably SWORE they wouldn't share it.
They stood to lose nothing, and shared it with more of their friends and, etc, etc.
Wonder how those people feel now.
-NetMagi
Can't blame Apple here, I'd rather see their lawyers working on this kind of case than on better ways to enforce DRM. Pre-release versions give you a heads up on software advances and help companies release a better product.
On a side note, it's good to see this guy actually take responsibility for his actions, instead of hiding and blaming Apple.
I forgot what I wanted to say, but honestly, it was important.
any clue on HOW many beta testers there are? Well, a lot. There is no way the software was signed in anyway to track it to him. They just got lucky that he made it very easy for them to target the originating point of the leak. Example: (Post in forum) Doug: If anyone is interested, I posted a torrent for the new tiger release of OSX. The link is here... Wow! When you click on his user account it has his full name and address!
Well, apple can't really just make him admit guilt and call it a day. They need to set some kind of an example. So making him pay an undisclosed amount is the best idea. This way he can pay a fraction of all the money Apple lost. (He'll probably very little since he's a recent graduate and probably owes the government a ton of $$).
The article says he's a "recent graduate of North Carolina State University who is currently looking for a job". I can't imagine this kind of publicity is a good kind to have when you are out interviewing.
Sure, most guys looking over the resumes aren't going to recognize the name, but there's got to be a company or two out there that actualy does the background checks.
Anyways I can't imagine is prospects are all that hot right now...
As far as Apple is concerned this is nothing at all to do with the money. It is entirely about putting out the message that if you sign a legally binding NDA and the distribute code/information then they will not stand idly by. The guy broke a contractual agreement that he had and I'm afraid he has to suffer the concequences.
RikF
In Soviet Russia you own your cat
there is a widely-held view that NDA's are meaningless and un-enforcable. this shows clearly that is not the case. i'm sure apple wants a certain amout of publicity around this to get that point across.
Setting a precedent and standing up for their rights while not mauling the guy to death. Nice.
from TFA: Steigerwald is actually not a student, but a recent graduate of North Carolina State University who is currently looking for a job.
Well, thanks to this story he has officially been transitioned to the permanent tech no-hire pool. I don't think any company would want to hire someone who so blatantly broke an NDA, and made the headlines for it.
I hear those people who drive snow plows make a killing. Maybe he can do that instead of software development.
How do you know he's not a rich punk?
/. ... there are few here who aren't hasty at most things in life..
You're the one jumping to conclusions and acting like a jerk (as you are accusing 'Apple' of being). Maybe also the 'financial payment' (confidential) was "give back what you paid us to join the ADC, and your ADC membership was cancelled".
College grad or not, if you don't know the -exact- terms of the deal, don't be so hasty to cast judgment. Oh, wait, this is
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Members of (the) Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very seriously to protect our intellectual property," Apple said in a December statement.
How horrible that Apple should go after someone who broke a confidentiality agreement and disseminated software which wasn't his to begin with and which he had no right to disseminate.
Oh the horror!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"While Apple will always protect its innovations, it is not our desire to send students to jail,"
I thought it was a civil case, or is Steve Jobs made a royalty here so that offending him carries jail sentences? Besides how exactly do you "settle" a criminal case?
Any of us who work in the commercial sector will know that this guy only has himself to blame, and good on Apple for acting quickly. OSX is commercial software. He signed a NDA. He broke the terms of the agreement. End of story!
Jonathan Beckett http://www.pluggedout.com
A financial settlement with a fresh college grad? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
What sort of settlement would you accept then? Corporal punishment? Or should Apple say "You naughty naughty boy, you pirated our software, but that's OK, we don't want any sort of punishment for you, otherwise emil (695) won't buy our products"?
I'm not sure how much the settlement is, but it is well within Apple's rights. Maybe they asked for and received a token amount just to make an example of him.
For the record, MS has gone after people before. Parts of Win 2000/NT source code have been released. There has not been any news of capture but MS will probably use all their means to punish the offenders.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The idea of the early release is to give developers who are willing to pay significant money, a head start in developing their applications so that they use the very latest and greatest features of the new OS (which in case is spotlight, etc). If Apple weren't to take action against piracy like the for-mentioned then these developers would lose faith and it be a lose-lose situation all round (including the end customer/user).
Sure, most guys looking over the resumes aren't going to recognize the name, but there's got to be a company or two out there that actualy does the background checks.
I think a bigger problem would arise if (background check) == (Google search). I strongly suspect that route would turn up more info [vis a vis this situation] than would a traditional background check. In any case I believe you are right: this individual has committed a CLM*.
* Career Limiting Move
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
So if you want to call lessening the punishment "coherced", you can. Apple gets what it want, untrustworthy developer get what he wants. Others might call it an equitable settlement.
"In exchange for an apology and being example to others (by signing this confession), we'll reduce the sentence from death to twenty years in the Gulag". So if you want to call lessening the punishment "coherced" [sic], you can. Russia gets what it wants, untrustworthy citizen get [sic] what he wants. Others might call it an equitable settlement.
See the problem with your logic, and your definition? I hope so, even if you can't bring yourself to admit it publicly.
I don't want to defend or excuse the actions of this fool for having disseminated Apple's secrets all over the net, violating not only the NDA, but trade secrets and copyright, but to call what happened "uncoerced" is to redefine the term along Newspeak guidelines.
Was what he did wrong and illegal? Yes.
Was the law clearly on Apple's side? Yes.
Could it have been worse for the offendor? Yes.
Was the offendor coerced into making a public apology and serving as a scary example to others? You bet he was.
$10,000 is probably a lot to most any 22-year-old. $500,000 would have destroyed him. "Do what we tell you or we'll destroy you" is about as coercive as it gets, whether or not the one being coerced is on the right side of the law. If you have any doubt about this, I suggest referring to the definition of the word, which I have conveniently pasted above.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Actually he signed up under the free membership. Someone who had a professional membership transferred one of their seed licenses to him. The reason why it works this way is that for example, I have an ADC membership. I can purchase a an annual paid membership, but instead someone else at my company (in purchasing) does this and then transfers assets to someone on the development team who then transfers them to other team members (like me).
Assets include DTS questions, seed licenses, hardware discounts, WWDC tickets, and other things.
We always have left over seed licenses. Apparently some *real* developer transferred this kid a seed license. Because he had only signed up for the free service, he didn't really think about the NDA much.
Apple's new rule is that you can only transfer assets to people at your company. I am not sure yet how that rule will affect me. I do some consulting and so I get assets transferred to me by multiple companies. I've had my membership for 10 years and worked at 5 companies during that time, plus other consulting work.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
The guy broke a NDA, he signed an agreement not to release the software. This is speaks to the one of the foundation of our society, the ability to make an hold to an agreement.
The ad hominem attack on Jobs is a nice little aside to the fact that the law recognizes agreements as important to the structure of business.
Plus, it has to do with karma, Slashdot currently sees MS and the RIAA as entities without karma, both have done so many stupid and malicious things that they can't help but react with pitchforks and 'effigies'. Meanwhile, Apple has created nice products without finding interesting ways of screwing its customers. That's the difference; you shouldn't have gotten Troll but rather Redundant for saying something that has been in every thread here for the last year.
Try to be more clever; like 'Reich-publicans' I like that.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
"Apple feeds off of this energy and their evangelical fanatics, and is now taking a stab at their very base."
You seem to imply that this kind of thing has never happened before. This is not true. Apple benefits from the speculation about what they might be doing, but they are hurt by people actually knowing.
Think of the the apple rumor community as a bunch of stalkers. Sure they're usually just annoying and creepy, but sometimes they go to far and break into your house. You have to let them know when they've crossed the line.
Since the amount was not disclosed, I would think it to be a small amount. If it was some large amount, I think they would have published the amount. An unknown amount may have as much, if not more "fear factor" than a known large amount, when it comes to discouraging future behaviour in others.
So, I think the carping about picking on a "poor student" is a load of crap. To enter into a binding contract, one must be of the age of majority. If he then broke the terms of the NDA, I have no sympathy.
MOD PARENT DOWN -- doesn't understand the legal system, or the grandparent's post. It is absolutely NOT allowable, and carries severe criminal penalties, to agree to drop criminal charges in exchange for a civil settlement. Moreover, no criminal act took place here. Breach of contract is NOT CRIMINAL and cannot result in jail time. The grandparent got it right too -- you can't "settle" a criminal case. Whoever provided that quote to the press about "not sending students to jail" didn't understand the case or the applicable law.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
You are overextending the definition of "coercion".
Hardly. I used the term correctly and accurately. This is stark contrast to the phrase "equitable agreement" as used in the post I replied to.
By this logic, you are saying that all of the plea bargaining that goes on in the justice system every day is mere "coercion". But most people would not use this word to describe a situation where a prosecutor wants to guarantee a conviction, so she offers the defendant a reduced sentence in exchange for a guilty plea.
There is a great deal of coercion that does in fact go on in the plea bargaining process, to the point that innocent people have plea-bargained despite their innocence to avoid what they see as an inevitable worse outcome, and to the point where people have given false evidence in order to get off more lightly.
Whether or not coercing people in these situations is just or not is another debate, but the fact of the matter is that it is coercion. I would argue that when private companies can engage in such coercion, that that has far more unpleasant implications than when a district attorney does so. Nevertheless, as history has shown, both often have unjust and unintended consiquences. We accept it anyway, partly out of comfort with the status quo and fear of change, partly because we can't imagine a better approach, and partly because we're involved in our own lives and don't really give a shit.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't sign an NDA when I pirate Spice Girls albums.
-- often wrong; never in doubt
Okay, this guy (who we'll refrain from calling "a total dumb@ss" for now), signs the usual legal agreement with Apple and receives confidential software, that he then, against contract, distributes to the web. Apple, with contract in hand, takes this guy to court. They bring this guy to the full accountability of the court, (which he knew about beforehand). In an act that I would describe as barely short of weakness, Apple offers this guy a way out of having to pay 500-Grand. ...
And people have a problem with this?
The guy willingly and directly defied his contract agreement by distributing this software, and Apple rightly came after him. Considering the way in which he broke contract, they should have nailed him to the wall!
It's more of an example to pirates when companies show no mercy!
This guy broke the law. Deliberately. It might be different if he like, had his computer stolen or something. What? Is he claiming that he opened a can of Jesus Christ and was told to put Tiger on the web? Please...
If Apple wants to send a message to software pirates, they shouldn't do it by showing that they give pirates a break. If the full penalty crushes this guy into a sublevel of hobbo that he'll never recover from, so be it. He knew what he was doing. They should lock him away in a deep dark hole for the rest of eternity (or, if yer a darwinist like me, shoot him).