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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.
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.
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.
"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).
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
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.