Comments

1
YES!! BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME!

Hoooooraaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
2
That IS pretty hilarious.
3
bwhahahaha!
4
they did it for the lulz
5
Boooo, Apple! This is purely puntative--Gizmodo has already been pretty clear about how they got this. An Apple employee left in a bar, and then some other people found it, and sold it. Pretty straight forward. It's not like they're going to discover something here. The intent is quite clearly to intimidate others from leaking sensitive info before products are released. I like Apple, but this is a very bad move.
6
Over a phone?
7
The first thing I said (and tweeted) when I heard about the original story was, "$5000? That's not even going to cover legal fees."
8
@SPK Over a prototype that stood to make Apple billions of dollars over the next 1-2 years, which is now out in the open for all competitors to see and make pertinent adjustments to their own products ahead of schedule.

Corporate espionage is big business, and Apple is one of the biggest businesses in the world (in market cap they're only behind Exxon and Microsoft, and *ahead* of Walmart). So yeah, it's not surprising they aren't taking this lightly.
9
@Dave In California the buying and selling of property that you do not own is ILLEGAL.
10
Over on the Gizmodo site they've got some verbage up over how this was an illegal search and seizure due to the fact that you can't seize a journalist's property in this way.

Regardless of what this was over, this is troubling. What if this was the Pentagon Papers or leaked nuclear documents? Why aren't journalists freaking the fuck out over this?
11
I do believe there's a precedent for journalists being able to hang on to/not be prosecuted for reporting about things that they have in their possession, but did not obtain illegally.

As I recall, it comes from a case in which someone had illegally wiretapped a phone line, got some good juicy info, and then sent the tape to a local radio station, which played it on the air.

The radio station was found to not have violated any laws because they weren't the ones who recorded the conversation. I would think that standard applies here: Gizmodo didn't go steal an iPhone, they didn't buy one off a street corner, they found one. Apple should fire the employee/tester who lost it, but Gizmodo should be under no liability for their reporting.

Possession of the phone itself might be a different story, but Apple can't take action over the content of the reporting.
12
@Graham - I read the same rebuttal, but it seemed like all the legal language they quoted was aimed at preventing journalists from 'being made to reveal their sources.' If that covers 'buying stolen goods,' I'm not sure that it should. If Humphrey got busted buying cocaine and glitter, it seems like he could make the same arguments that Gizmodo is making. I'm not sure that being a journalist really has anything to do with it.
13
@Bronch "Gizmodo didn't go steal an iPhone, they didn't buy one off a street corner, they found one."

I'm pretty sure they actually bought it from someone that found it. Does that make a difference? If the person who found it had sent it to Gizmodo for free would that change it? Not returning found property is considered theft in California.
14
@Branch - They paid $5,000 for the phone, and have refused to return it. That's a key difference over 'finding' footage.
15
Ah, got it. I somehow had remembered the original story saying someone found it in a bar and turned it over to them.

Guess I have way too much faith in information for information's sake. Am I the only sap that would give something to a publication just because it's newsworthy? Thought so. Must be why I'm not retired yet.
16
What, receiving stolen property is wrong? That's fascist!
17
No, KNOWINGLY receiving stolen property is wrong. My DVD player, speaker system, car stereo, bike, guns and unreleased next-gen iPhone are all okay. Because I'm pretty sure they all came legitimately to that tweaker on 82nd.
18
@Reymont: Actually, Gizmodo said last week they were happy to return it to Apple:

http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-…
19
@fahqueue: I know! They should have totally raided the NYT's employee's homes after the published the Pengtagon Papers! Fuck the First Amendment and journalistic freedom!
20
True. Apple didn't get it's panties in a twist unitl after it hit the web. What Chen's computers had to do with this, I have zero clue. Steve Jobs has let the chemo go to his head.

Methinks this could get interesting.
21
What I find most surprising is this guy sold the phone for only $5000. If I'm going to commit a crime, or at the very least make a very big company angry, I'm going to want a lot of money for my trouble. Gawker offered $100,000 just to see an iPad for an hour. This guy could've sold this phone to HTC or Palm or Microsoft or RIM for enough money to retire, and they'd be inclined to keep the whole thing a secret thereby protecting both parties.
22
Andy Mesa, you are a far better capitalist than I.
23
@Graham Your analogy is flawed. The Pentagon Papers exposed a government coverup of carpet bombing in Cambodia and Laos; that's newsworthy. If a journalist went out tomorrow and reported the location and plans of a military operation, that would be tantamount to treason.

If an employee suddenly revealed that an ingredient in Coca-Cola causes cancer, he'd be protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act, but this is an issue of trade secrets being revealed. If a reporter claimed to have "found" the recipe for Coca-Cola, or worse, that he bought it from someone who "found" it, you can bet he'd be in a world of shit.

Like it or not, there's limits to what we can say and publish without fear of retribution.
24
@Andy Mesa: That's a bullshit argument. Who's job is it to determine what is "newsworthy." Are you trying to make some sort of Meese-ian argument that "you'll know it when you see it?" What did this journalist do that was a felony? They openly reported the provenance of the phone. They openly stated to the legal represenation of Apple how to recover their property. There was no way for them to know what the content of the phone was until they acquired it. Their source wanted compensation in return for providing the content.

If some tweeker comes up to me and says "hey I got this bike, I'll sell it to you for $50" and then I buy it and publicize that I bought it and then offer to return it to the rightful owner if they step forward to claim it, should my house be raided by the police?
25
Unless this journalist personally bought the phone, he did nothing wrong. He hasn't been charged with a crime, so the San Mateo Police Department seems to agree. However, if there is an investigation about a crime and he has evidence that leads to a suspect, that seems fine to me. I'm not a lawyer or a judge (like the one that approved the search warrant) so I can't say with any amount of expertise, and I doubt you can either.

And for the record, if you buy a bike from a dude and you absolutely know it was not his bike, then yes, you just committed a crime in the state of California. Note that Gizmodo was not the first blog this phone was peddled to, Engadget was offered first and they declined on advice from their legal department. Gawker Media isn't stupid, they knew the legal ramifications of their actions.
26
Graham, you very carefully chose your words here and neglected to mention one thing: the new iPhone is very much stolen, something that can't be ignored. Most everyone in tech circles knows it isn't being released very soon.

Your analogy is only appropriate if a tweaker came up to you and offered you a bike saying "I swiped this from your neighbor's yard, it belongs to his kid" and you took it home, took it apart, critiqued its parts and then wrote stories about it which you then proceeded to post up on flyers around the neighborhood with your name and address on each flyer, after which you feign surprise and dismay and outrage when the father of the kid came to take the bike back and hammer-fisted your jaw because instead of telling him who sold you the bike you simply said you have a right to have the bike and critique it and take it apart and it's not your fault if the father didn't come and take it back earlier.
27
Agree with Alexjon & Andy Mesa; this isn't news, it's theft, and everyone involved knew it.

And @ Graham, I'm guessing you're referencing Justice Potter Stewart (not Meese) with the "know it when you see it."
28
Wow. A Marjorie Skinner post that people actually comment on. I didn't know there was such a thing.
29
This is a comment from the NYTimes comments section, "Trade secrets are only secrets as long as the owners keep them secret - quite unlike copyright, patents, etc." I don't know what that means legally but the way I look at it is if you are in a bar and some one is dumb enough to not only take the secret phone into a public place but leave it there then the person who takes/sees/examines the phone isn't the responsible party. Apple should have a stricter policy on where new technology goes, and who takes them.

When that Chinese company used a stolen blue print for an American (I think GM) car that was yet to be released and then made and released the car early in China thus undercutting the market for the real* car where were the armed forces?

This seems like a move away from common sense and towards military rule, oh wait, sorry I forgot when and where I was.
30
Also this sums it up, "How was Gawker supposed to know who the property belonged to until they published the newsworthy story and Apple came forward asking for the device? Gawker never saw the device while the user's account was still active. For all Gawker knew they were posting a story about a fake iPhone prototype. There was no official proof that it was Apple's property until Apple came forward saying so. "
31
@C - Those last two comments were pretty ignorant. The Chinese company making illegal copies of American cars was straight up theft. You ask where the armed forces were? Do you REALLY want to go to war with China over IP theft? Are you going to enlist?

And Gawker paid $5,000 for the stolen phone. Why would they do that, if they didn't know it was an Apple prototype? Obviously, they knew what they were buying for their money - not to mention the fact that the seller was openly shopping it around AS a prototype iPhone. Gawker wasn't his first stop - other companies were smart not to buy stolen property and then publicly announce it.

Alexjon has it right, above.
32
The comments were from the NYTimes comment section (except the car example).

No, I wouldn't go to war with China over theft of a car but maybe over some of their human rights policies.

What about the theft of weapons designs (like when Israel allegedly stole the nuclear bomb design from the US)? Certainly more important than an iphone.

And really more to the point, does Apple want to go to war with the public over their f*up? What do they win?

Please wait...

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