] 12/24/2004: Apple Computer, Inc. has filed suit against
] Mac TKA members
]
] Members of the Mac.TKA Community,
]
] Before reading, know this: Any replies made to this
] thread which are not questions will be deleted.
]
] Many of you are still questioning our motives surrounding
] the disabling, and later the deletion of, the torrent of
] Apple's pre-release beta of Mac OS X Tiger dubbed Build
] 8A323. You've all had many questions, and we've been
] carefully mulling over how to answer your concerns. Now
] we're prepared to provide you with an answer that is
] clear as to the issue at hand.
]
] The torrent was brought to the attention of Apple
] Computer's Legal team who subsequently contacted the site
] administrators, as well as some of the volunteer staff,
] to request the torrent's removal. The torrent was then
] disabled with a note instructing other staff members to
] not re-enable the torrent. Because of the nature of this
] incident, we wanted to ascertain as much information as
] possible about what has happened and what will happen in
] the future before making a statement.
]
] The Apple Developer Relations team has asked, and we've
] complied to the best of our abilities, that all
] pre-release torrents originating from the Apple Developer
] Connection be disabled; you'll find that all Tiger builds
] have been either disabled or deleted. As such, we'd like
] to ask that no one attempt to upload further pre-release
] software builds from the Developer program. Apple has
] many reasons for their decisions not to allow us to offer
] these torrents to you, and we -- the Mac.TKA Staff --
] must abide by their wishes as the developers of the
] software in question.
]
] Furthermore, Apple has asked that all users who have
] downloaded this software without possessing an Apple
] program membership which allows you legal access to this
] software to delete all copies which may have been
] downloaded.
]
] We're here to host a Mac community and to serve torrents,
] to have a learning experience in building a peer-to-peer
] community. Users are responsible for content which they
] upload. Moderators and Administrators respond to any
] valid legal complaints in the manner which the staff
] feels is appropriate and addresses the concerns of the
] complaint.
]
] Remember that no one on BitTorrent is anonymous -- no
] matter what precautions you take, BitTorrent needs REAL,
] EXACT IP information to properly route traffic among
] peers. Just because we don't list full IPs and usernames
] on the tracker stats page doesn't mean that users who
] wish to won't have the ability to get this information.
] Just keep this in mind as you contribute and take content
] from this tracker; you should be prepared to assume the
] risks that may come from participating in a
] non-anonymous, non-encrypted file sharing network.
]
] In light of what has recently taken place, we are going
] to be making some major changes. We are first going to be
] migrating to and creating a new forum for all the users.
] The tracker will keep running but we will make some
] changes. We will disable the ability to integrate torrent
] information in the forum. However, we will also enable
] RSS accessibility. There will be other major changes -
] possibly even moving to a new tracker system. The system
] we have now is very functional but I'm certain you all
] can see some deliquencies which not only reside in our
] tracker but in just about any other tracker on the
] Internet. We have been working on most of these changes
] already but have decided to implement them sooner than
] anticipated.
]
] I'm sure most of you have read the news presented by the
] Mac Observer about 'the Torrent Website' and three of
] it's users for which a suit has been filed. The three
] users, merkin, desicanuk, and dmsmac, are all users of
] Mac TKA, and 'the Torrent Website' is
] www.torrentskickass.com. Currently, none of the
] operators/owners of the site have been included in the
] filing. These users have requested that they not be
] contacted about donations or the court filings. While we
] know you all want to help, the users have been working
] with Apple Legal to bring resolve. In addition to the
] three users, Apple also specified 25 John Does in their
] filing. It has not yet been made clear who the John Does
] represent.
]
] Last, I'm certain many users have questions for which
] they want clear and concise answers. Before posting, read
] the other threads first as to not repeat questions. If
] you have a question, reply to this thread, posting the
] question. We will collect all of the questions in a new
] post with answers.

Apple Files Suit Against 28 Torrentskickass Users :: TKA - News