“Apple Computer Inc. has sued three men for illegally distributing test copies of the next version of its Mac OS X operating system on a file-sharing Web site, court records showed on Tuesday,” Duncan Martell reports for Reuters. “The lawsuit is the second in as many weeks by the maker of the popular iPod digital music players and iconic Macintosh personal computers to thwart the release of its software and details of its unannounced products.”
“Apple claims in its suit that two different versions of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger, were made available on the Web on or about Oct. 30 and Dec. 8 of this year. The company has said it will ship Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ in the first half of 2005, after previewing it to the Mac community at a trade show last June… According to the suit, the men released the software on a Web site that employs BitTorrent file-sharing technology, which is used to rapidly distribute large files of electronic data, and is also widely used to distribute pirated copies of motion pictures via the Internet,” Martell reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a virtual festival of lawsuits emanating from Cupertino this holiday season!
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Computer subpoenas three Mac enthusiast sites to turn over information about product leaks – December 21, 2004
Apple sues anonymous people over leak of unreleased Apple product info on Web – December 17, 2004
RUMOR: Apple preps analog to FireWire audio device for GarageBand users – November 23, 2004
Good for Apple. Sign an NDA, honor that NDA. Steal the software, pay the consequences.
and merry christmas. Ha ha. Burn ’em.
don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time! go apple
can you say benevolent dictator?
most companies would kill for this kind of corporate worship..
These guys are bloody idiots!
They sign a non disclosure agreement and then post the results of tests on the web!!
They deserve what they are gonna get – prison.
I don’t know if its a good idea to turn on people who supported you through the hard times.
Although they obviously have every right
Regardless of whether they have supported Apple over the years or not – the fact remains they signed a non disclosure agreement.
If you sign one of those YOU WILL GET SUED IF YOU BREAK IT!
I don’t know of any company that would not sue anyone breaking one of those agreements – a non disclosure agreement is a VERY serious agreement to sign and everyone who breaks one always get sued!
For all APPLE knows those guys could have been feeding the info to Microsoft!
I have no sympathy for anyone who is that stupid – I bet APPLE have blocked all their .mac accounts and they are probably black listed too from any Apple related product or service or training.
Those guys could be facing 4 years in jail!
I Agree, You cant make something public when you’ve signed an agreement…They’ll get what they deserve….
As much as I like “insider” information, I would rather be completely surprised during Steve’s keynote. So Apple suing these guys is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Go Apple!
With all due respect, Solar Flare … I haven’t heard that Cupertino is in the process of building detention facilities specifically for those persons Apple is suing. Nobody goes to jail for four years just because a private party is seeking compensation until a criminal charge is laid
But, if you know something about Steve Job’s omnipotent powers that the rest of us don’t ….
Steve is fanatical about keeping his secrets from prying eyes and ears until the time is right to announce them. When will people realise this and stop leaking info?
If details are leaked before launch then it gives the competitors time to catch up or counter the move. If people want Apple to gain more market share (and a higher share price) then they are gonna have to keep their big mouths shut. That includes all these blabbermouth analysts that keep letting the cat out of the bag.
The funny thing about this Asteroid thing is that people had pretty much ignored it. Three days ago when the lawsuit became news, all the talk was of flash ipods, iphones, satellite devices and sales figures. Very few people even remembered the Asteroid rumour. Maybe Apple should have not bothered with the laswsuit.
… unless, of course, that is supposed to take the focus off flash satellite ipod phones that will sell in huge numbers.
Dobbie
This board is going a tad too self righteous for our own good. Let the first pure file swapper cast the first stone.
Slice their scrotums, stick their big toe in the slit, then shoot them for limping. That ought to stop the practice of leaking info to the web.
I’m for having them surgically joined to Steve Ballmer for several years (thus making kind of a super-mutant siamese multi-Monkey Boy).
If that doesn’t set an example and act as a deterrent, I give up.
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Good for Apple. Serves them right.
Does anyone else find the MDN Magic word a thrashing? It’s not like there was a problem to begin with.
“This board is going a tad too self righteous for our own good. Let the first pure file swapper cast the first stone.”
DBI, it’s not a matter of being self-righteous, and the file-swappers among us should be fully aware of the consequences of trading copyrighted materials, as far as I’m concerned the only issue here is that these people signed a binding agreement and then BROKE IT. No one can convince me that they weren’t aware that Apple would sic the sharks on them. You break a contract, you can get sued, period. Why are we even talking about it?
Yes Viridian but we are also guilty of living for sneek previews and rumors that this people strive so hard to provide us with. It is a bit like being a celebrity hog and cheering when a paparazzi get beaten up double standars, thats my issue here. Just because the president practice them does not mean we have to follow
These guys didn’t just violate their NDA, they put the thing on a file-sharing web site for god sake!
Apple needs to protect their work.
I signed a NDA on the Stargate and you don’t see me blabbing about it on a web site!
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Looks like Apple goofed here in two areas…
they somehow lost control of there software
development team/process & they chose websites
to affiliate with who were less than perfect.
What kinds of problems does this create for Apple?
Hard to say, only time will tell. Since there’s
only one real competitor here…I imagine that
this type of move would only delay further any
Longhorn release from Microsoft…it’s always nice
to have the opponents playbook to add to your game
plan, eh Bill?
Apple should go after those involved, but this is the
kind of mistake that really can’t be compensated for
with money or jail time.
Time to re-think again…Apple is the poster child
for trouble free computing, guess they have problems
too. Tough luck :/
Look on the bright side…this should motivate Apple
to become even more diligent with thier products and
future releases beyond OS X Tiger…as well as thier development team…makes sense to me.
CT
like there has never been pre-release versions flying around in the past!!!
the people who broke the NDA are in some serious shit, but I would bet my last dollar that they ain’t the people who posted it…
Someone’s gonna get their ass whooped, go stevie, go stevie, go stevie (in a jerry springer stylee voiceover)
”For all APPLE knows those guys could have been feeding the info to Microsoft!”
Hah, I would bet you 20 bux that M$ already has a copy of what they where releasing, they are software developers.
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1. I have never found Bit Torrent to be blazingly fast. Of the few times I have used it, regardless of my high speed connection, it was 5 times slower than a dial up with a bad connection on a Saturday night.
2. Apple shouldn’t slam their supporters? If they were supporters, they wouldn’t have done something like this.
Apple was very well aware that making the developer’s release available, that it was very likely these first copies of Tiger would find their way onto a few friends and families’ Macs, too. Deciding not to wage a battle between themselves and their customers, Apple has never had an overly restrictive registering scheme. Perhaps, the cost of making, controlling and enforcing such a scheme doesn’t offset the lost money when someone updates their old Aunt Sadie’s Bondi Blue iMac with their own copy of OS X. Apple also doesn’t do much marketing, and having extra installs of the latest OS X, even if it was for free, isn’t such a bad thing for advertising based upon word-of-mouth.
But, placing it openly for public copying, DOES put a serious dent in their income. In addition, “silence is compliance” and if Apple let them go, then Apple would be giving the impression that anyone anywhere can copy Apple software.
Apple has been extraordinarily generous with their registration, and I’d much rather see Apple stomp on these idiots rather than making the rest of us, and Aunt Sadie, suffer with the Draconian registration schemes of Microsoft.
Go Apple!!!
Ship em to Iraq or North Korea. The scum.
This was an obvious offense against Apple by trusted
developers…it’s the actions that you describe where
people, for one reason or another, let thier developers copy fall into the wrong hands.
There’s always something to be gained by this knowledge meant strictly for the Mac community before it’s release. How can Apple prevent absented minded/disgruntled/enterprising Mac developers from spilling the beans? Tough call…but when you do require the developers to sign an agreement, what more can you do but take thier word that they will honor it???
Let’s just say…you never know. For crying out loud, just don’t let legal woes slow you down. Seems like Apple has the right attitude here, let’s hope it doesn’t become a regular occurance.
CT