By Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - 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.
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.
Apple makes test versions available to certain software developers
under strict confidentiality conditions and lets them test the
prerelease software and develop or change their own programs to work
with the software.
The company said in its lawsuit that the two different versions were
made publicly available by the men, who were members of the Apple
Developer Connection.
"Members of Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple
software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very
seriously to protect our intellectual property," the company said in a
statement.
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.
"Apple's future operating results and financial condition are
substantially dependent on its ability to continue to develop
improvements to the Mac OS and related software applications in order
to maintain perceived design and functional advantages over competing
platforms," the company said in its civil complaint, filed on Monday
in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San
Jose.
Apple's Macintosh computers and Mac operating system compete
principally with personal computers using Microsoft Corp.'s dominant
Windows operating system. Apple currently has a less than 5 percent
share of the overall PC market.
On Dec. 13 Apple, based in Cupertino, California, filed a lawsuit
against unnamed individuals who leaked details about new products by
posting information on the Internet.
The lawsuits come weeks ahead of the Macworld conference in San
Francisco, the annual show where Chief Executive Steve Jobs typically
unveils the latest Apple products in front of thousands of the Mac
faithful.
NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily
media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra . New articles daily.
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This Internet discussion group is making it available without
profit to group members who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the
understanding of literary, educational, political, and economic
issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I
believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish
to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go
beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright
owner, in this instance Reuters News Service.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Lisa Minter (lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com)