- From the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Other way around. If anything, it sounds to me like Beeper Mini was acting illegally by accessing Apple’s servers in a way they didn’t give permission for.
The CFAA is ripe for abuse. I’m not saying applying it here would be just or not, only that Apple likely wasn’t the one acting illegally.
They may very well have violated the law as it is actually written.
Beeper is lucky they weren't sued under the DMCA anti-circumvention clause, as they clearly were bypassing the technological measures Apple uses to prevent genuine devices from connecting to iMessage & Apple services.
I think you’re likely right though. If they had such a claim I think their lawyers would have been on it instantly.
That’s why I mentioned the CFAA. Accessing servers without someone’s permission is the exact kind of thing people have gotten very stiff punishments for under the CFAA in the past. It’s basically the main reason I know the law exists, stories about peoples ridiculous punishments for relatively benign things.
Sure it’s useful for real things. I bet you can prosecute ransom under it. Or hacking to break into a rival company.
But it’s also great for when someone embarrasses a politician with stuff that they published on their own website and “something has to be done”.
So I would summarize it as the corporate entity connecting to an Apple API and using it in undocumented ways that they reverse engineered, intercepting messages meant only for Apple software, doing so without prior permission, for purpose to selling access to services which would normally be covered by an Apple EULA.
It is not quite like a smaller word processor wanting to be able to import Word documents - without tying into Apple's service, Beeper Mini has zero value.