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31 Comments
- Vanion, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Bottom line Brian Ball is a douche bag
- macsamurai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Brian is digging himself into a deeper hole by pulling his own post down. As I said, Brian - it's all about perception.
- slyydrr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I used to visit macZOT, and actually buy a quite a few ZOTs here and there. Then I started noticing that some of "macZOTs" posts in the comments section were aimed directly at some members (maybe in a sarcastic tone) in a demeaning way. Any comment to the ZOT about it would be replied to with a "you're wrong, no one cares what you think" attitude.
I started boycotting macZOT because of this nearly 4-5 months ago, and haven't regretted my decision once, but I've been relatively nonvocal about it. Now I will be showing every OSX user this digg, and letting them make up their own mind about the issue, and whether they wish to give Mr. Ball their business.
What bothers me the most is that yea, theoretically what Brian Ball did was legal, there's no questioning that. However, legal or not, it was a dirty, slimey thing to do, something that I would expect from a conman or something of the sort. Just purely unethical, whether it be legal or not.
To be honest, I hope at the end of this we can say "good riddance." - goodinuf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8My experience with Brian Ball is that he does not keep his word. This is a shortened story of how he made a deal with me, then after I agreed he reneged.
Back in June after I purchased a MyzteryZOT I found out what I purchased did not agree with what was advertised. After many emails to Brian regarding the advertising error and requesting a refund I got a "Sorry" no refunds reply from Brian. I persisted with emails during which Brian made other offers that were not acceptable to me.
Eventually Brian offered to give me a license to the disputed software for free. Brian wrote rather than a refund "Wouldn't you rather just have Pzizz paid for?"
Even though I had no use for Pzizz after further consideration I wrote back agreeing to his offer "After a nights sleep I realize that your offer is more than an acceptable solution it is a fair solution."
The next day Brian wrote "So far, nobody I've talked to thinks it makes sense for me to send you the serial. Imagine if word got out a out and 650 other people came knocking at my inbox saying.. "Umm.. why did (name) get the free Pzizz when the rest of us had to pay $11.50 for it?"
It seems a lack of integrity is not something new to Brian Ball.
Eventually I did get a full refund on the MysteryZOT but it took a lot of time and work on my part. Since then I have not purchased anything from Zot.
I have saved all emails and MacZot screen shots in case the materials could be useful for a district attorney or attorney general.
Because it is likely this will get deleted form Zot I will post this on digg. - dcconz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It looks like Brian has replaced his original post with this http://maczot.com/discuss/?p=290
- slyydrr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This explains it quite well sx86: http://maniacalrage.net/past/2006/8/31/this_is_an_important_note/
- garrettmurray, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Without adding more and more fuel to the fire, it's unfortunate that the Digg item about the original story (which currently has over 500 diggs) was buried: http://www.digg.com/apple/Brian_Ball_of_macZOT_screws_developer_out_of_5_520 because it adds quite a bit of detail to this situation.
- totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It does happen all the time. I think the independent developers community (shareware, utility programs etc. on both the PC and Mac) works on a slightly different level; one where things like ethics and perception are a more integral part of the equation-at least it is for me when I buy from them. MacZot may have a legal position to stand behind (waaay behind) , but how they handled the situation certainly discourages me from dealing with them in the future.
- marcelo002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Also, if i can pitch in my thoughts...
The biggest problem seems to be that Brian is treating the contract, and the deal, as though it was simply a rental, just pay a monthly fee until he doesn't want to anymore. Reading from Garrett's responses and comments, it is clear that he never thought of it as a rental, but rather as an outright sale. He made the mistake of being a nice guy and letting Brian pay the payment in monthly installments. That agreement combined with that clause that was meant to protect Garrett unfortunately created an easy out for Brian. Oops for sure, but no dirty tactics so far. The ugly part of this digg soap opera is that Brian knew about the easy out and planned to use it even before signing the contract. Furthermore, he led Garrett on by letting him keep thinking that this was a sale, not a rent. I can't speak for Garrett, obviously, but I think that if he had any idea that this deal was anything buy a sale, he would not have signed the contract. Hopefully he'll respond here to verify my thoughts.
Legal? yes. Ethical? ehh. Moral? doubtful. Dirty? absolutely. - javaroast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Brian Ball is now going by the name Slime Ball. His new post highlights it and the fact that he has deleted comments from the discussion on the post. I will not purchase anything from any endeavor that he is part of.
- goodinuf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4My post got deleted for MacZot in about 5 minutes.
- samuelcotterall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"We both admit it was a lesson learned" is another way of saying "We were both at fault".
Brian Ball isn't going to win any friends with lines like that. - greymarketbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3does anyone have a copy in cache somewhere of Brian's original post? I think everyone should share in that.
- slantyyz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Well, legally speaking, it doesn't seem that Brian Ball did anything wrong.
While the _ethics_ may be questionable, let's not kid ourselves. In the real world, this happens ALL the time. And in the real world, the stakes are usually much higher.
The only thing thing we can hope for is that "what comes around, goes around". It seems like that's going to happen in this case. - slyydrr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Thanks for the link, I dugg it. I'm sorry that you had to suffer through this ordeal. Legal or not, it was immoral and wrong. It seems that he saw the situation as a "if I can benefit, yay for me, otherwise I'll renig on the deal and pretend it never happened."
What a slime ball. - marcelo002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is from the TUAW comments, user ryos posted the contents of the original post by Brian:
[start of post]
13. Below you'll find Brian's response post on macZOT which he apparently take down.
There are numerous Mac shareware developers out there who are watching macZOT closely as one of the potential sales channels. After this whole mess, most of them are probably thinking "I will not conduct business with macZOT!"
Brian claims that he did nothing illegal. Ok, fine maybe he didn't. But he messed with the Mac shareware community. Frankly, Brian's whining about paying $5000, which in my opinion is not a large amount of money if it takes legal consultation and other misc fees before we can even make a contract with the company.
Mac shareware developers are selling their apps on macZOT hoping for the fairness. macZOT shaped up to be a neat community site and I thought it was a great place to be for Mac shareware junkies! Well, it ain't now!!
-----
xPad & MacZOT
Here is our response to the Tuaw posting by Laurie Duncan
If you’ve seen either the Digg post or the Tuaw post about xPad and MacZOT, please read this and let us know what you think.
First, to get up to speed, please read Garrett’s post at: http://maniacalrage.net/past/2007/1/4/you_might_remember_a_post/
Here is the part where Garrett admits it was his oversight in writing contracts, not Brian’s fault for actually agreeing to it.
Note, Garrett wrote the contract.
"So, how did he [Brian] do it? He exploited a clause in the contract that I [Garrett] put in place to protect me from potential default. The contract stipulated:
If the buyer fails to make a payment after 90 days, this contract shall be void and terminated at which point all rights and license will revert back to the seller. At such a time, the buyer will no longer have rights to publish or use any of the materials covered in this contract. No refund will be made to the buyer.
In hindsight, this wasn’t the best way to protect myself, and it was a bad move on my part. Consider me too kind. I didn’t want to write "buyer must pay balance," because I didn’t want to make it an unfair situation.
[He then admitted it would be "unfair" to make the buyer pay the balance.]
Instead, Mr. Ball used this as a simple way to get out of this agreement. He simply stopped paying, stopped responding to emails, and kept selling the product. Eventually, in late November, he finally transferred the domain back to me and xPad became mine again.
Here’s the only part that some people think is wrong. I agree that if any sales were happening during that period, it would have been wrong. However, we were really trying to find a way to make it work from a business standpoint. As soon as we made the business decision to no longer represent xPad, we removed the site.
It’s clearly a misunderstanding on Garrett’s part, one that he is upset about. However:
1. He admits it was his fault.
2. He states he did that because he didn’t think it was fair to make somebody pay the balance.
There is no wrong action to defend. You simply have to read what was stated and just determine if what happened is really unfair, or if somebody had unmet expectations and went into a Maniacal Rage about it.
We had every good intention of bringing lots of xPad to the market because we really like the application. But once we decided that really wasn’t part of the core strategy we held up our end of the agreement we made. The fact that Garrett is making xPad free confirms the fact that he himself realizes that xPad is not worth further development but is still a very useful application.
macZOT! Today at 1/4/07 5:25 PM ZOT
Posted at 1:26AM on Jan 5th 2007 by ryos
[end of post] - gleepskip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Of all the products I purchased via MacZOT (primarily the numerous Mystery ZOTs), I don't use any of them today. Overall, in retrospect, it was a waste of my time and money. Lately, the usefulness of the ZOTs has gone down tremendously. Most of the applications are far too specialized. I suppose that is part of the ZOT concept - promote lesser-known applications.
With this latest turn of events, given Brian's less-than-honorable behavior, I've purchased my last ZOT.
Sorry, Brian. Wish it didn't have to end like this. - lianos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The right to do something and the right thing to do are two very distinct things.
I wish more people would live their life by the second point of view rather than the first. - samuelcotterall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://maniacalrage.net/
- sx86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Can anyone post a link to a story describing what this is all about?
- vonnie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It is true that this kind of thing happens all the time. It is also true that any future deals with untrustworthy business partners get cancelled. It is also true that the word spreads really fast about bad deals. Ever heard of this whole networking thing (in a business context)? That's where experiences with business partners are shared. Really good ones get recommended, bad ones get shunned. That is exactly what is happening here. Yet instead of mac developers going out and having a drink, they network over the internet. (blogs/digg/..)
- ToeCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree with you 100% and I think this is where this is becoming a big issue is that Mr. Ball won financially but is taking a hit on the morality issue. But like in life if you miss payments to a creditor, you may have saved some cash but your credit score suffers. In the future, small developers should insist on full payment and for small time marketers like Mr. Ball. If you feel that the product you are getting is worth it but can't afford to pay it out then get a line of credit from a bank. That last option is really a suggestion that the developers should tell Marketers who are trying to enter a payment plan with them.
- empty01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"2. He states he did that because he didn’t think it was fair to make somebody pay the balance."
Wow, because Garrett was far to considerate about Brian (stupid in business) he got screwed. No one will read this post but I'll spell it out anyway:
Garrett is not a businessman in the truest sense whereas Brian is. Brian will manipulate any advantage to give him that extra $0.50 ethical/moral or not. However he is doing this in a small-ish growing community that communicates extremely well, eg he's cutting his own throat for greed. Just because he can get away with it doesn't mean the backlash will be worth it. I don't use mac's, I never will, but Mr. Ball isn't a Bill Gates because when Gates screwed people/businesses there were NDA's involved. - ToeCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree with vonnie. The developer wasn't posting to try and get money back. He posted a blog entry on his site to let his past customers know what had occurred since the time he sold off his app.
- rickjames47, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1bad post sorry.
- doce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been party to situations like this in the past - after all, most businesses fail. What I can say is that, contractual obligations or not, businesses and businesspeople that invoke these escape clauses are typically looked upon very poorly by other businesses or people looking to do business with them. I've seen several deals fall apart simply because, once upon a time, some participant pulled something like this.
Simply put... if you expect people to continue doing business with you - either in a B2B context or B2C - you stick to your agreements in spirit, not just in word. If you can't, for whatever reason, you bite the bullet and take the hit to your credit and credibilty and you don't whine about it.
Brian Ball reniged on a deal, something he was legally (and perhaps ethically) able to do. That doesn't mean he should be absolved of all effects upon his credibility. - mccoma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, I think it is the opposite. The market is heating up and certain people are trying to become publishing houses. The only problem is the economics that make a program viable for an indie developer don't work for a publishing house.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Not to be a troll, I'm truly curious, and I don't use a Mac. Whats with all the Mac software package revendor/promoter lately... Is the market so poor for Mac indie dev that they jump on every and any offer made to them? And whats with all the drama...
- phill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Most businesses will jump at most offers to make them more money. It's just marketing. You have to market your product to make more money. If you don't market, you don't make money, then you don't eat.
- goodinuf, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0from not for
- Schwa, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Brian did nothing wrong and you're all acting like children. He followed the contract, and the "escape clause" benefited both parties. Why is Garrett complaining? Brian Ball's initiative ran out of money- if he's not contractually obligated to, why should he be forced to keep digging himself into a financial hole? This kind of thing happens in the business world all the time.
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