MacBidouille.com threatened by Apple lawyers

[Cloudane]

I think if you invite them to find something, they'll find *something*. IANAL but the DMCA is very 'open' worded from what I've seen. And take that possible honeypot PM that's been flying around - surely if someone answers it then they could argue that you're helping to facilitate the exchange of illegal files...

[TheOtherDay]

I think if you invite them to find something, they'll find *something*.  IANAL but the DMCA is very 'open' worded from what I've seen.  And take that possible honeypot PM that's been flying around - surely if someone answers it then they could argue that you're helping to facilitate the exchange of illegal files...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

I may be wrong, but I believe thats "Entrappment"

[DaffyDuck]

Of course, you are not contesting the advise to scour the site for explictly problematic content.  Yet I reallly wonder about the "illegality" of screenshots.  Furthermore, Apple's claims to "trade secrets" that it makes readily availible to its only competitor, Microsoft, are pathetic.  More over, after these so-called "trade secrets" have leaked onto the Internet they must become "public domain" at some point.

 

My goodness, the level junk spouting forth from your pen is indeed staggering, bofors... You appear to know next to nothing about legal issues, yet appear to lecture on them from the pulpit of authority.

 

Trade secrets do not become 'public domain' by the mere fact of being leaked (what an astounding statement) -- though if the owner of the trade secrets does nothing when such leaks happen, they weaken the argument that these are trade secrets.... Ooooh, does it now sink in why Apple *has* to pursue these sites, and has to demonstrate that they are defending and protecting their trade secrets? Hint, hint!

 

Furthermore, the reason why pictures ("Pictures, I tell you, pictures!") fall under the forbidden fruit category has already been explained - but hey , it's because the product to generate such images is protected by a restrictive license, which does not allow the distribution of the product, the disassembly, or the dissemination of screenshots. Hence, disseminating screenshots, of an illegally acquired copy of the product is a violation of trademark and licensing rights, and Apple has every right to be concerned, and request for them to be taken down.

 

By the way, has anyone debating in this thread bothered actually reading the license shipped with the dev kit disk? I thought so...

[PGHammer]

My goodness, the level junk spouting forth from your pen is indeed staggering, bofors... You appear to know next to nothing about legal issues, yet appear to lecture on them from the pulpit of authority.

 

Trade secrets do not become 'public domain' by the mere fact of being leaked (what an astounding statement) -- though if the owner of the trade secrets does nothing when such leaks happen, they weaken the argument that these are trade secrets.... Ooooh, does it now sink in why Apple *has* to pursue these sites, and has to demonstrate that they are defending and protecting their trade secrets? Hint, hint!

 

Furthermore, the reason why pictures ("Pictures, I tell you, pictures!") fall under the forbidden fruit category has already been explained - but hey , it's because the product to generate such images is protected by a restrictive license, which does not allow the distribution of the product, the disassembly, or the dissemination of screenshots. Hence, disseminating screenshots, of an illegally acquired copy of the product is a violation of trademark and licensing rights, and Apple has every right to be concerned, and request for them to be taken down.

 

By the way, has anyone debating in this thread bothered actually reading the license shipped with the dev kit disk? I thought so...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It is obvious that you are either a developer or extremely receptive to the position of Apple Legal (if not both). I am not going to even begin to debate said position with you. My objection to both the position of Apple Legal and to the DMCA itself is based on the position of *practicality*. Waving the *it cannot be done* flag (as Apple freely admits it has done via the hyperextensive protections on OS X x86) is nothing less than a challenge to some folks to make the flag pointless. ("What a brain can do, a better brain can undo." This is an *accepted* theorem of all science, including computer science, and *especially* programming.) Wishing and/or attempting to legislate the challenge away is no more possible than causing water to flow uphill without artificial assistance. The DMCA looks a lot on its face like the attempts in some state legislatures to by legislation set *pi* equal to a whole number. (This has actually been attempted in the United States. Several times; including no less than six attempts since 1961, the year I was born.) Worse, what about nations where there is both no such protection *and* that are also heavily involved in software piracy (often with the assistance of the resources of the national government)? What will Apple Legal do there? (The People's Republic of China comes immediately to mind.) The DMCA is a wholly American regulation, which can only be enforced within the United States. It looks good, and it may even be admirable. However, is it actually *practical*?

[learning_bird]

I bring to your consideration this John C. Dvorak article published 08.08.05 :

 

"Apple on the Brink"

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1845259,00.asp

 

I highlight the following statements:

Making it seem as if the OS will remain proprietary allows Apple a number of benefits. Here they are:

 

Keep Microsoft from getting weird early—as cited above.

Assure current Mac mavens that not much is going to change.

Allow for Apple to pretend to fight the OS getting out into the wild, so it can then say, "There was nothing we could do. This is the OS that people apparently want and need."

Give Steve Jobs the path to a formal announcement at one of the Apple confabs where there isn't much to announce.

Give Jobs the ability to tell Gates that Apple didn't really want its OS on all computers everywhere. "Bill, you've got to believe me!"

 

Number five is the hard one to make believable, unless Apple attempts some hardware trick, such as a trusted-computing chip. Here is how this scenario plays out.

 

Apple plays the game with some sort of trusted-computing lockdown. The source code for the exact mechanism is stolen or hacked or both. It's actually weak and meant to be cracked. Soon the crack is on the Net, and with or without a hardware bypass, the code is shown working on a Dell. Apple protests and threatens to sue anyone caught running the code. This results in all sorts of publicity, as the average user wants to know what all the fuss is about.

 

This is kind of how Napster went from a few thousand users to a few million users overnight during the "crackdown." The situation worsens as Steve Jobs remains firm in his attempt to stop the piracy of the OS. Everyone complains, and then, seemingly out of the blue, Jobs relents, "because it was happening anyway." He makes a comment that the company is going to rethink its marketing strategies regarding the OS in the wild. He'll say he is disappointed.

 

In the wings is waiting a shrink-wrapped upgrade that works perfectly on older machines. A public announcement comes. "It works on machines that Microsoft Vista won't run on!" says Jobs. The crowd goes wild.

 

And it's priced below Microsoft Vista. It turned out that the hacked OS-X86 that Steve was so angered by was actually the beta test for the rollout of the commercial product.

[bofors]

Trade secrets do not become 'public domain' by the mere fact of being leaked (what an astounding statement) -- though if the owner of the trade secrets does nothing when such leaks happen, they weaken the argument that these are trade secrets.... Ooooh, does it now sink in why Apple *has* to pursue these sites, and has to demonstrate that they are defending and protecting their trade secrets? Hint, hint!

 

So you agree that "trade secrets" need to be, well, err... secret?

 

What about the fact that Apple makes these so-called "trade secrets" readily availible to it's prime competitor Microsoft? Does not that make them any less of a bona fide "trade secret" in your mind? I mean, "trade secrets" are suppose to be information that one wishes to kept to from would-be competition. Here Apple is clearly missusing the "trade secret" concept to kept information from the public for generating marketing hype. Maybe I am wrong here, but that strikes me as being problematic in any objective legal arena (not that one actually exists).

 

Hence, disseminating screenshots, of an illegally acquired copy of the product is a violation of trademark and licensing rights, and Apple has every right to be concerned, and request for them to be taken down.

 

What? This logic implies that any screenshot of a public OS X release is potentially illegal.

 

By the way, has anyone debating in this thread bothered actually reading the license shipped with the dev kit disk?

 

Why? I would assume that the license only applies to, well, err.. licensees, i.e. developers in lawful possesion of the kit.

[bofors]

The DMCA is a wholly American regulation, which can only be enforced within the United States.

 

While this statement is technically correct, the European Union has mandated legislation similiar to the DMCA. It is called the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). This law specifcally makes circumvention of the TPM/TCPA unlawful. However, apparently only six EU countries have implemented this law, namely the UK and Germany, (that's right, not France):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EUCD

[DaffyDuck]

My objection to both the position of Apple Legal and to the DMCA itself is based on the position of *practicality*.  Waving the *it cannot be done* flag (as Apple freely admits it has done via the hyperextensive protections on OS X x86) is nothing less than a challenge to some folks to make the flag pointless. ("What a brain can do, a better brain can undo."  This is an *accepted* theorem of all science, including computer science, and *especially* programming.)

 

Fair enough, and FWIW, but wouldn't you think that Apple knew fully well what would happen by throwing out such a challenge, and by providing standard PC hardware in the dev kit? All I can say, *if* I were Apple, is "Thanks for doing the hard work for us, so fast...Cheers".

 

As I have said, the final release of the hardware will be quite a bit different, if Apple wants to keep the genie bottled up -- but that's not even the biggest issue (really, they could not care less about enthusiasts running OS X on their homebrew machines), as if they maintain 'standard' hardware designs, you could presume that the cloners in China (a good point you made) will be instantly on-board, creating motherboards tweaked and finetuned to run OS X, and shipping a hacked copy of OSx86 with each, causing a thriving grey market -- and that is THE REAL thing that Apple does not want to see happen. At all.

 

Those idealistic folks speculating about a free future with OSx86 working well on their future machines have no clue about Apple's history in this market, dating back to the Apple II (and the masses of clones from China that swamped the market back then). Apple's not stupid, I have to keep repeating.

 

So you agree that "trade secrets" need to be, well, err... secret? 

What about the fact that Apple makes these so-called "trade secrets" readily availible to it's prime competitor Microsoft?  Does not that make them any less of a bona fide "trade secret" in your mind?  I mean, "trade secrets" are suppose to be information that one wishes to kept to from would-be competition.  Here Apple is clearly missusing the "trade secret" concept to kept information from the public for generating marketing hype.  Maybe I am wrong here, but that strikes me as being problematic in any objective legal arena (not that one actually exists).

What?  This logic implies that any screenshot of a public OS X release is potentially illegal.

Why?  I would assume that the license only applies to, well, err.. licensees, i.e. developers in lawful possesion of the kit.

 

Bofors, it has now become pointless to further respond to your replies/arguments -- as you seem to relish fervent ignorance in even matters of common sense, or basic issues of licensing and contracts (or won't even bother researching Apple's history w/regards to licensing and competition.

 

Have a good one, just don't expect any more response to you from me.

[Azurael]

w00t!

[Pons]

hi there. i'm Felipe from Chile... (yes.. that long and small country in south america) and i'm 17.

i've been reading these 3 forums for some long time (concretesurf, 360hacker and osx86proyect) and i'm very interested in installing osx on a x86 (i like challenges) but at the moment I dont have a SSE2 processor (this damn AthlonXP's) and I have and old G3 350mhz running 10.3 so I know how better this system is, but that is not the point now.

 

It's stupid that Apple takes legal actions against you and the other informational sites. All files are being shared through P2P's, and not in true servers so they don't have any reasons.

Anyway, you could host this site in Russia.. or Chile.. so you won't be in US jurisdiction.

 

And.. that's it

[hatoncat]

Here's the deal, it's a matter of public identity. OS X running on plain old PCs right now is not part of the master plan.

 

Apple will eventually offer OS X in a standalone form. They did not want it to happen right now. The problem is in terms of identity.

 

Right now, to get OS X, you have to own a Mac. That's what Apple wants those billions of computer users out there to understand. Showing, demoing, and running OS X on a beige box shatters that identity, because people believe what they see. In other words, if the mass media catches onto this, it becomes an identity crisis.

 

Mac OS X would be comitting suicide if it was offered in standalone form right now. No major games, apps, drivers, etc. That will take years, and Apple has to woo developers over.

 

The same goes for WINE. No WINE until OS X gets at least 25% of major Windows apps ported. I can't go more into this, but that's the internal projection. No WINE = No Standalone Release (again, can't go further than that into the details).

 

Please don't whitewash what I just said, that is what Apple is going to do, your feeling about it won't change it (and I'm not saying this to be rude, it just isn't something even I will debate).

 

How that relates to Apple Legal's feelings towards this site I leave to you...

[dponmac]

screw apple... they should have known this was gonna happen when they decided to move to intel. and if they didn't know, then no wonder they have been in gates' shadow for so long.. think different my ass,

[hatoncat]

screw apple... they should have known this was gonna happen when they decided to move to intel.  and if they didn't know, then no wonder they have been in gates' shadow for so long.. think different my ass,

 

Apple knew it was going to be hacked... they didn't realize people would tear apart OAH750d and CoreGraphics within 30 days of it being leaked. The final version of Mac OS X will either have more stringent checks, or, Apple will use the marketing publicity already generated and continue to allow unsupported installs. The ball is in their court now, they certainly will have to deal with the consumer confusion either way.

[DaffyDuck]

screw apple... they should have known this was gonna happen when they decided to move to intel.  and if they didn't know, then no wonder they have been in gates' shadow for so long.. think different my ass,

 

 

"Gates' shadow" -- Hee Hee, you're funny, you just don't realize it.

[joelogic]

Here's the deal, it's a matter of public identity.  OS X running on plain old PCs right now is not part of the master plan.

 

Apple will eventually offer OS X in a standalone form.  They did not want it to happen right now.  The problem is in terms of identity.

 

Right now, to get OS X, you have to own a Mac.  That's what Apple wants those billions of computer users out there to understand.  Showing, demoing, and running OS X on a beige box shatters that identity, because people believe what they see.  In other words, if the mass media catches onto this, it becomes an identity crisis.

 

Mac OS X would be comitting suicide if it was offered in standalone form right now.  No major games, apps, drivers, etc.  That will take years, and Apple has to woo developers over.

 

The same goes for WINE.  No WINE until OS X gets at least 25% of major Windows apps ported.  I can't go more into this, but that's the internal projection.  No WINE = No Standalone Release (again, can't go further than that into the details).

 

Please don't whitewash what I just said, that is what Apple is going to do, your feeling about it won't change it (and I'm not saying this to be rude, it just isn't something even I will debate).

 

How that relates to Apple Legal's feelings towards this site I leave to you...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

There's a good point or two in there, but someone said something to me once that was perfect:

 

Apple is a hardware company that just happens to make an awesome OS. With this intel switch, I think Apple is going to have do more than switch an architecture. I think they are going to have to switch the way they want to do things. A big selling point for the Mac is OSX. The general populous see's the shiny plastic casing, and that operating system. I'd like to see Apple get away from relying on that fact, and really start pushing the fact that they can make great products. If and when that happens, OSX will run on whatever the hell you slap together, because it wont be such a trump card for them anymore.

[hatoncat]

That shift has to, and will, be made at once. Apple cannot cease to innovate in hardware before or after making the switch, the OS just has to mature on the x86 platform before they can get OEMs on board other than themselves.

 

Apple will continue to be able to have their cake in the hardware game and eat it too, Intel will allow Apple to sell super-compact laptops, OS X-enabled PDAs, and high-end servers at a minimal cost, while continuing to allow the iMac/eMac/mini/PowerMac to continue to compete with Dell, HP, Gateway, etc... just on the same platform.

 

Apple will, at that point, not make their bread-and-butter on the hardware, the hardware will serve as a reference platform for other OEMs to spec their hardware (and at a lower price, for the price-minded).

 

"The Shift" when it does happen, will be more dramatic that Windows 95's launch... Apple, HP, Dell, and all the other OEM's I can't/won't name will all at once run blockbuster ads that their "new OS X PCs" are such an evolution that it's time to upgrade.

[joelogic]

That shift has to, and will, be made at once.  Apple cannot cease to innovate in hardware before or after making the switch, the OS just has to mature on the x86 platform before they can get OEMs on board other than themselves.

 

Apple will continue to be able to have their cake in the hardware game and eat it too, Intel will allow Apple to sell super-compact laptops, OS X-enabled PDAs, and high-end servers at a minimal cost, while continuing to allow the iMac/eMac/mini/PowerMac to continue to compete with Dell, HP, Gateway, etc... just on the same platform.

 

Apple will, at that point, not make their bread-and-butter on the hardware, the hardware will serve as a reference platform for other OEMs to spec their hardware (and at a lower price, for the price-minded).

 

"The Shift" when it does happen, will be more dramatic that Windows 95's launch... Apple, HP, Dell, and all the other OEM's I can't/won't name will all at once run blockbuster ads that their "new OS X PCs" are such an evolution that it's time to upgrade.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree, I just hope Apple realizes that once OSX is available on competing hardware, they are going to have to do something to keep people buying theirs. They can fight and try to keep OSX running on Mac only x86 architecture, or they can really put those smooth design and hardware skills to the test and make some kick ass stuff that would make people choose their hardware over, say, Dell or Gateway

[hatoncat]

Well, the last sentence of Jobs @ WWDC was very telling:

 

(Summarized) "And remember, the Mac OS software is at the heart of Apple's innovation" (or something like that)

 

It was a direct statement that the focus from here on was on the software division. I think Apple is shifting away from the focus of the company on Mac hardware. Granted, as long as it stays profitable, they'll keep doing it, but once Mac OS X has domainted the top 10 OEM's, iPod stays strong in the industry, Apple won't need Mac hardware.

 

Apple really is starting to look like Microsoft, having cornered one major software industry (Mac OS/Windows) and gaining prevalence in multimedia hardware (iPod/Xbox). I don't think Apple needs to sell Mac hardware, it's just easy for them to do so.

 

The big exception to this is the "Apple Force". USB, FireWire, Bluetooth, 802.11b, 802.11g industries all have universally thanked Apple for their adoption. Apple will continue to have the nerds (like me, you, and everyone else) drooling over what's standard on Mac first, the OEM's will be content picking them up three-to-six months after Apple does, with the added benefit of prebuilt drivers and a localized update system (nobody makes drivers better than Apple).

[joelogic]

Well, the last sentence of Jobs @ WWDC was very telling:

 

(Summarized) "And remember, the Mac OS software is at the heart of Apple's innovation" (or something like that)

 

It was a direct statement that the focus from here on was on the software division.  I think Apple is shifting away from the focus of the company on Mac hardware.  Granted, as long as it stays profitable, they'll keep doing it, but once Mac OS X has domainted the top 10 OEM's, iPod stays strong in the industry, Apple won't need Mac hardware.

 

Apple really is starting to look like Microsoft, having cornered one major software industry (Mac OS/Windows) and gaining prevalence in multimedia hardware (iPod/Xbox).  I don't think Apple needs to sell Mac hardware, it's just easy for them to do so.

 

The big exception to this is the "Apple Force".  USB, FireWire, Bluetooth, 802.11b, 802.11g industries all have universally thanked Apple for their adoption.  Apple will continue to have the nerds (like me, you, and everyone else) drooling over what's standard on Mac first, the OEM's will be content picking them up three-to-six months after Apple does, with the added benefit of prebuilt drivers and a localized update system (nobody makes drivers better than Apple).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I like that idea. It certainly makes sense. Apple's got this "cool" factor in their card deck, I just want keep seeing em use it Another year from now I think iPod is going to lose some steam with the competition, there are a huge number of challenging players walking into that arena.

 

Apple does something great, and thats innovate. I love Apple's {censored} not because it works well (which it does), but because its so much damn fun to use. If they can keep that, they'll succeed wherever they want to end up going (software or hardware)