Not to be an apologist, but it seems like Apple's actions make a lot of sense.
First of all, who posts meeting notes from meetings with top executives when given a heads up about upcoming products? NOBODY. Of course it's confidential by default.
Second, Apple was right to presume a company charging to get music in the App Store would likely provide lower quality music. Charging for access completely reverses the motivation of record companies. Until they were ready to open the floodgates, excluding companies that charged was a reasonable if rough quality filter.
Confidential by default? Says who? Just because you say so doesn't mean everyone assumes that.
It's not as though the people there didn't know that Derek represented a bunch of independents who would all be able to make their own decisions. And if they somehow did not know, then they're fools for not spending 5 minutes to understand how CD Baby worked and what it meant for Derek.
They could have said in less than three seconds "This is all confidential." And then Derek would have had a conversation with them about what he could and couldn't say. I don't think he was at all in the wrong to not assume confidentiality at the get go. People sharing information have a responsibility to set expectations on it's use. Not the people receiving it.
Says who? Anyone that's ever been involved with technology businesses for 30+ years knows you risk your relationship when you breach confidence. It's common sense.
Of course, common sense is rarely common, which is why we have NDAs.
Have to disagree. If hundreds of people are "invited" it's almost like a mini conference. In fact, the entire issue was that Apple never created a relationship with him in the first place. I totally understand why under those circumstances someone wouldn't assume what was said is confidential.
Right, but you just assumed the model for life is "confidential unless told otherwise" and I'm saying that assertion doesn't necessarily hold. Your relationship with a secret lover? Yeah, probably. Does that same assumption hold if you're drunk, telling one of your friends (who is also drunk) something at a bar? Probably not.
So what we've discovered is that context matters. The folks at Apple treated the negotiation with Derek the same as all the folks at the labels (where secrecy is probably the default and nothing needed to be said). Derek assumed that the people he was talking to understood the nature of his business (much, much different than a big music label) and would tell him if he needed to keep his trap shut. No such words were said and thus, he assumed everything was cool.
Was it potentially stupid of him to assume everything was cool? Yeah maybe. But at the same time, why is it his responsibility to think to ask if it's OK to share this information? How can he know there is any confidence to be breached?
I'm essentially arguing that this isn't such a clear-cut case as you make it out to be. Since context matters.
Anyone who believes that a potential new partner with no reason to be loyal to you, and not held back by a confidentiality agreement, won't use your offer in negotiations with competitors is a fool. There were 150+ attendees, this was never going to be confidential.
That said, CDBaby were foolish to think divulging these details wouldn't effect their potential business arrangement.
In another thread, we have links to the Debian project leader politely and directly talking to someone who is causing an issue for them, suggesting pathways for a relatively win-win resolution. He got labelled as treating the guy poorly.
Here we have Apple responding like a spoiled brat "What, how dare you do that! Take it down! Now we're going to do stuff without telling you, changing the bargain from our side, and make snide sideways remarks directed at you. We'll cut off communication and you have to guess at why we're doing this" and they get a pat on the head.
First of all, who posts meeting notes from meetings with top executives when given a heads up about upcoming products? NOBODY. Of course it's confidential by default.
Second, Apple was right to presume a company charging to get music in the App Store would likely provide lower quality music. Charging for access completely reverses the motivation of record companies. Until they were ready to open the floodgates, excluding companies that charged was a reasonable if rough quality filter.