Interview: Philip Kaplan

Pud was a complete drop out of the dark for me. As a reader of fuckedcompany.com throughout the late 1990's, I'd always enjoyed his wry sense of humor and quick jabs at some of the foolish companies that took so much money from everyone in the name of pies in the skies. So it was very surprising when he contacted me, directly, out of the blue and said that he was interested in being interviewed. It turned out that Philip Kaplan ("Pud" on his site) had run a pirate BBS in earlier times, before he'd joined the world wide web. And not only that, he really wanted to talk about it. This was big news, because in the amount of talking I'd done with anyone who'd touched pirated software or BBSes, the general reaction was a complete disinterest in talking about those days. A few mentioned the Statute of Limitations and their current positions in society as reasons; obviously Kaplan did not really care what other people thought. And really, it came out in his interview that he was no insane big player in the pirating of software; just another kid with a BBS who offered a few games for download that weren't his. The interview was to be done at his offices in New York City, and when I arrived a half-hour before the appointed time, I decided to stick it out in the lobby of the thin, strange building in downtown until the right moment. I got into the clanky elevator about five minutes before the appointment, not wanting to show up too early but not cruise in late, either. Imagine my surprise when I got to the floor, went into the hallway, and found all the doors locked and all the lights off. I waited around for an hour and a half, figuring I'd messed up in some way, double checking the time, calling Pud's phone number from the interview sheet, and trying to determine what to do next. It was apparent at that time that for whatever reason, Pud was not going to be available for an interview. Outside, with my equipment, I decided that I really needed to make up for the 2