Wandering into thickets...

DrunkenBatMan has an interview with one of the college students who is getting sued by Apple for passing around developer builds of the next version of OS-X. It is interesting to me as an example of how easy it is to wander into a legal and ethical morass with hardly a thought. Among other things, the kid signed an NDA, but didn't read it because he treated it like all those licensing agreements that come with our software. Who reads the things?

There's way too much bogus "law" these days. For instance, all those things we all sign where we accept that the product is dangerous, so we can't sue if our toe gets chopped off? Truth is, you can still sue. Charlene could cut through any of those things easily, if she were on the Dark Side. (Actually, she says the one exception is ski resorts! Those agreements have always been upheld by the courts.)

This is a different case than that Apple suit against a "blogger." Actually I don't think ThinkSecret is a "blog." I've read it for years without ever thinking "this is a blog." (And I've been blogging since 2001. That's decades in Internet time—I should be considered an expert witness on what's a weblog!)

I don't presume to say who's right or wrong in these cases. But I think there's a of of double-standarding in the way Apple gets criticized by people who blandly stand by and watch Microsoft obliterate entire companies. As Brian Tieman said recently, it's sort of like the phonies who wax indignant about Abu Ghraib while winking at the murders of Hamas or the Taliban or Saddam....