Weekend Contest: NDA Risk

Posted
by
Steve St. Pierre
on January 5, 2007, at 11:22 AM
in Editorials and Spotlight
. Tags: .
Comments: 12 responses
12 Comments

bbcoolwcontest.jpg

Our heart skips about twelve beats (give or take) everytime a new leak or exciting rumour surfaces. This week saw in-hand shots of the BlackBerry 8800 (or was it the 8900c) leaking (and being promptly removed) onto the interweb. The folks who supply these leaks, like notable Boy Genius, take some decent risks when they put these images out for the world to see. Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) are pretty big deals in this industry (or any industry, for that matter), and when broken, it could bring a lawsuit to your lap.

So, we’re asking all of you to put yourselves into Boy Genius’ shoes for a minute (they don’t smell that bad). If you happened upon, say, a 9XXX device floating around your office, would you take the chance to snap some shots with your Pearl and leak them? Or would the thought of lawyer fees scare you enough to put that camera away? People have gone so far as to examine desk textures and the like to find out who released the pictures and take them down. So would you take this risk? Why or why not? This week’s winner’ll walk away with three games from Magmic. Oh, and did you see who won last week?

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  • Krad

    I don’t need the games…

    I have beta tested many devices including windows mobile to blackberries… I have signed and faxed many o ndr’s.

    People think it is fun and cool to try out or beta a new device… Well i can tell you from experience it actually sucks. There are usually so many bugs and problems, and any suggestions you put forward always never get into the production code. Not only do you have to use like a busted phone. You usually have to spend over an hour documenting the days events and ship away event logs. By the end of the beta test i usually feel like taking a sledge hammer to the device.

    Would i leak info or pictures of new devices? no

    I don’t think it is worth the hassle of telling anyone because they then annoy the shit out of you.

    The worst is when your in public and your waiter or someone at the grocery store asks you what type of device you have…….

    the whole topic from start to finish is headaches…. if your willing to put in the time and do what your supposed to be doing.

  • Krad

    I don’t need the games…

    I have beta tested many devices including windows mobile to blackberries… I have signed and faxed many o ndr’s.

    People think it is fun and cool to try out or beta a new device… Well i can tell you from experience it actually sucks. There are usually so many bugs and problems, and any suggestions you put forward always never get into the production code. Not only do you have to use like a busted phone. You usually have to spend over an hour documenting the days events and ship away event logs. By the end of the beta test i usually feel like taking a sledge hammer to the device.

    Would i leak info or pictures of new devices? no

    I don’t think it is worth the hassle of telling anyone because they then annoy the shit out of you.

    The worst is when your in public and your waiter or someone at the grocery store asks you what type of device you have…….

    the whole topic from start to finish is headaches…. if your willing to put in the time and do what your supposed to be doing.

  • http://www.boygeniusreport.com/ Boy Genius

    I would leak them… :)

  • http://www.boygeniusreport.com Boy Genius

    I would leak them… :)

  • L. M. Lloyd

    I’m not really competing in the contest, just wanted to put in my ¢2. I think that one thing that gets really overlooked in our corporate age, is that an NDA is not some law, it is a contract. More specifically, a contract between a company and an individual.

    More and more, I see people assuming that all leaks are the result of braking an NDA, and I don’t think that is often the case. Sure, if you signed an NDA, then you should abide by it. But if you didn’t then you didn’t, and you are under no obligation to care whether or not the company wants the information to be public or not. I know I have many times found myself in a position where, for one reason or another, I ended up knowing something that wasn’t intended to be public, yet was never asked to sign any sort of NDA. Either you are out for drinks with someone while they are venting about work, or you work in a company that provides some sort of service to the company in question, or they never though to ask you to sign an NDA, or whatever. There are a million scenarios where you might end up seeing something, or even being directly briefed on something, without ever being asked to sign an NDA, even when the company does not intend to make the information public. Of course, in those situations your own conscience and self-interest should determine whether or not it would be appropriate to divulge the information, but you are not under any legal obligation to keep the information confidential unless you signed some sort of contract to that effect.

    However, I think that more and more, companies have the rather dangerous attitude that they have some inherent right to privacy, just because they want it. I mean, this case is a prime example. Did your site sign an NDA? If so then you never should have shown the pictures in the first place. However, if you didn’t then legally RIM (or even the person who sent the pictures to you) has no right to demand you take them down. Perhaps someone broke an NDA somewhere, but it wasn’t you, so it isn’t your problem. If a company wants to crack down on a leak, their only recourse is to take action against those who broke the NDA, not anyone down the chain after the NDA was already broken. I think that is a distinction that often gets lost as soon as big corporate law firms start mass-mailing cease and desist letters to every site they can find on the Internet.

  • L. M. Lloyd

    I’m not really competing in the contest, just wanted to put in my ¢2. I think that one thing that gets really overlooked in our corporate age, is that an NDA is not some law, it is a contract. More specifically, a contract between a company and an individual.

    More and more, I see people assuming that all leaks are the result of braking an NDA, and I don’t think that is often the case. Sure, if you signed an NDA, then you should abide by it. But if you didn’t then you didn’t, and you are under no obligation to care whether or not the company wants the information to be public or not. I know I have many times found myself in a position where, for one reason or another, I ended up knowing something that wasn’t intended to be public, yet was never asked to sign any sort of NDA. Either you are out for drinks with someone while they are venting about work, or you work in a company that provides some sort of service to the company in question, or they never though to ask you to sign an NDA, or whatever. There are a million scenarios where you might end up seeing something, or even being directly briefed on something, without ever being asked to sign an NDA, even when the company does not intend to make the information public. Of course, in those situations your own conscience and self-interest should determine whether or not it would be appropriate to divulge the information, but you are not under any legal obligation to keep the information confidential unless you signed some sort of contract to that effect.

    However, I think that more and more, companies have the rather dangerous attitude that they have some inherent right to privacy, just because they want it. I mean, this case is a prime example. Did your site sign an NDA? If so then you never should have shown the pictures in the first place. However, if you didn’t then legally RIM (or even the person who sent the pictures to you) has no right to demand you take them down. Perhaps someone broke an NDA somewhere, but it wasn’t you, so it isn’t your problem. If a company wants to crack down on a leak, their only recourse is to take action against those who broke the NDA, not anyone down the chain after the NDA was already broken. I think that is a distinction that often gets lost as soon as big corporate law firms start mass-mailing cease and desist letters to every site they can find on the Internet.

  • Jason

    Somewhat off topic, but somewhat related. A guy or girl posted pictures of the new blackberry that their buddy had, and then they started to worry about the ramifications of what would happen to their buddy after they did it.
    I don’t know anything really about NDAs, but what I do know is that if you are really somebody’s friend, you don’t do something that can get them in trouble. It’s as simple as that. Whether you signed a paper or not, if your friend said they would get in trouble if anyone else saw it and then you still posted pictures of it on the internet, you SCREWED UP. But, I’m from Indiana, maybe things are simpler here.

  • Jason

    Somewhat off topic, but somewhat related. A guy or girl posted pictures of the new blackberry that their buddy had, and then they started to worry about the ramifications of what would happen to their buddy after they did it.
    I don’t know anything really about NDAs, but what I do know is that if you are really somebody’s friend, you don’t do something that can get them in trouble. It’s as simple as that. Whether you signed a paper or not, if your friend said they would get in trouble if anyone else saw it and then you still posted pictures of it on the internet, you SCREWED UP. But, I’m from Indiana, maybe things are simpler here.

  • morty

    whats the big deal?

    in 30-60 days this 8800 will be in stores anyway.

    If someone leaked blueprints to a device not in production and due out in 24 months, that could hurt RIM by providing strategic design/feature specs to their competition….i think this case is a great hype builder for the 8800 IMHO

  • morty

    whats the big deal?

    in 30-60 days this 8800 will be in stores anyway.

    If someone leaked blueprints to a device not in production and due out in 24 months, that could hurt RIM by providing strategic design/feature specs to their competition….i think this case is a great hype builder for the 8800 IMHO

  • http://www.vazcom.net/ Marco

    I would but if your going to be doing stuff like that you better know how to cover your tracks

  • http://www.vazcom.net Marco

    I would but if your going to be doing stuff like that you better know how to cover your tracks