Quote: Original post by way2lazy2care
he didn't just yell around... he called apple. Don't paint him as a dick when this was clearly an accident that got out of hand.

Why did he call Apple?

Option 1) He knew it was a top secret prototype, and that Apple would care dearly. You don't give up after one phone call - you email Jobs. He reads his email. The guy even viewed Facebook page of apparently the owner - why not call them?
Option 2) He didn't know it was a top secret prototype. If one finds a droid, does one call Google? No - one would either give it to bartender, or turn it to police, or most likely pocket it and be quiet about it. And after it got shut down, throw it into trash.

BTW: we know the engineer that lost the phone. Where is the breaking story on person who sold it? With picture, facebook, job address, ....?

I don't care about engineer, I'd like to know about the person who made the leak possible, he's the real hero.

Quote: yea... cuz that ipod was totally worth the $5000 retail. It would be more like if he sold the mercedes for a measly $500,000

$5000 was the price of advertising. Cost/benefit. Gizmodo knew that $5000 was worth the extra traffic they'll get. ROI, econ101, etc...

If it were priced more, it wouldn't be viable. Same for car - $500k wouldn't be worth the hassle, since it would not boost sales that enough. But images of new prototypes do sell for several thousand.

Quote: Original post by Antheus

Quote: upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or employed

Is Gizmodo any of that?

Quote:
"The California Court of Appeals has made it abundantly clear," Darbyshire wrote, "that these protections apply to online journalists," citing a 2006 case that also involved an Apple product. In that instance, the court held that Apple could not force writers at a technology blog to identify their sources.

Quote: Original post by Antheus
Isn't traditional media dead?

That question isn't relevant to this case.

Was Police Search of Gizmodo Blogger's Home Illegal?

Quote:
...
Representatives of Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, demanded the immediate return of Chen's computers on the grounds that their search and seizure was illegal under a California statute that protects journalists from having to turn over "unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public." In the opinion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the warrant was invalid under both state and federal law, and the execution of it could undermine any criminal case in the works, since evidence obtained through the search will have to be excluded.

But that interpretation of the law is far from unchallenged. If the investigators were trying to determine not merely whether the iPhone was stolen in the first place, but whether Gizmodo's acquisition of it constituted criminal receipt of stolen goods, then the warrant may well have been valid, says Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law.

"Generally speaking, while these protections extend to information that was revealed to the reporter by people who might have been witnesses or even themselves criminals, the protection does not extend to criminal conduct of the reporter himself or even of criminal conduct the reporter has witnessed," says Volokh, whose areas of expertise include free speech and cyberspace law. "So to the extent that what's being investigated here is the possible criminal receipt of stolen property, that would be the sort of thing that could be searched for. Reporters have no more right to commit a crime than the rest of us do."

Whose reading of the various laws involved is right? As of now there's no clear answer. Orin Kerr, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law, noted in a blog post that the relevant passage of California's shield law for reporters "has never been interpreted by a court." In other words, a judge will have to figure out whether the law, as written, lets a reporter use journalistic privilege to conceal evidence of his own suspected crime. Were that to happen, it would be "a rather weird result," writes Kerr. (Of course, one judge has already deemed the warrant valid: the one who signed it, a member of the Superior Court of San Mateo County.)

One thing that won't be decided by this case is whether bloggers like Chen have the legal status of journalists. Despite Gawker Media owner Nick Denton's claim that that is what's at issue here, it's actually a settled question as far as California law is concerned, says Volokh: They are. And it doesn't even matter that Denton himself has said that journalism is "not the institutional intention" of his company, because the shield law doesn't cover only journalists per se, but anyone who works for a publication that disseminates information. "Whether or not they do journalism there," says Volokh, "I'm pretty sure they can call it a publication."
...

Quote: Original post by Antheus
Why did he call Apple?

Option 1) He knew it was a top secret prototype, and that Apple would care dearly. You don't give up after one phone call - you email Jobs. He reads his email. The guy even viewed Facebook page of apparently the owner - why not call them?
Option 2) He didn't know it was a top secret prototype. If one finds a droid, does one call Google? No - one would either give it to bartender, or turn it to police, or most likely pocket it and be quiet about it. And after it got shut down, throw it into trash.

from what I've read, he called ATT, who told him they couldn't help him, then called apple, who also told him they couldn't help him.

Honestly, until apple exploded on the situation it was a whole crap load of free advertising. Now instead of a bunch of good free advertising they got a bunch of "apple is evil" advertising.

Quote: $5000 was the price of advertising. Cost/benefit. Gizmodo knew that $5000 was worth the extra traffic they'll get. ROI, econ101, etc...

If it were priced more, it wouldn't be viable. Same for car - $500k wouldn't be worth the hassle, since it would not boost sales that enough. But images of new prototypes do sell for several thousand.

How was that his fault? he didn't spill a prototype. He found it in a bar. Likely he was intoxicated. The fact of the matter is it wasn't his fault, and apple's reaction to what he did is completely off base as very little of it was his fault.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That question isn't relevant to this case.

Was Police Search of Gizmodo Blogger's Home Illegal?

Broken door is one thing. But compared to the other lost iPhone prototype...

Quote: The fact of the matter is it wasn't his fault, and apple's reaction to what he did is completely off base as very little of it was his fault.

If he had kept it to himself, it would have been "ok".

He was selling it to highest bidder, but nobody wanted to get their hands dirty. That is a different thing from simply accidentally picking it up.

I think the real question here is what exactly happened during the phone call(s) to Apple. I don't see how it can be considered stolen property when Apple left it lying around and then refused to take it back.

Gizmodo's (obviously biased) version:

Quote: He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.

If there is even the tiniest shred of truth in that paragraph then Apple's standing on pretty shaky ground. It really doesn't have anything to do with journalism, it's a matter of whether or not Apple abandoned their property. Refusing to take back your lost property sounds like abandonment to me, and therefore it couldn't be stolen.

Quote: Original post by way2lazy2care
he didn't just yell around... he called apple. Don't paint him as a dick when this was clearly an accident that got out of hand.

He allegedly called Apple's Applecare tech support line, which, unsurprisingly, got him somebody near the bottom end of the corporate ladder who probably knew less about how to contact the higher-ups than he did.

I agree with Antheus. This is not the behaviour of somebody who is seriously trying to get in touch. There's a nice big list of high-level numbers on the Apple site - Apple PR would probably be a reasonable bet. This guy wanted to be able to say he'd "tried" returning it to Apple, but it clearly was not his intention. Either that or he's an utter, utter moron - but then he wouldn't have the smarts to sell the phone for $5000.

Free advertising isn't good just because it's free. Sure, now this has created some buzz about iPhone 4.0 - but Apple very probably don't want that, because maybe there are things about the phone they were thinking of cutting, or maybe there are things about the phone they didn't want their competitors to know this early, etc...

Here's what I think I'd have done to return the phone to the person who lost it. First, I'd consider just leaving it with the bar owner so when the person who lost the phone calls the bar to ask if they have a missing phone they can say "yes" and return it. Alternately, I'd put a bulletin up saying "found cell phone in this bar on this date. Contact me at this e-mail address to prove ownership". If I became aware that the phone was in fact a prototype I would maybe first try calling customer support of the company. I would also try different Apple phone numbers if that didn't work. Then I'd try to take it to the closest Apple store. If the apple headquarters was 20 minutes away I'd go there. If it was further I'd consider shipping it there. Of course, they might think "bomb" or something and it would cost me out-of-pocket so at this point I'd probably give up and consider selling the phone. Until I found out that I in fact was legally obligated to turn the phone in to the police per california law.

I seriuously doubt the guy that sold the phone tried nearly that hard to return the property. Now, whether there is a valid case against Gizmodo I'm not going to get into.

That is if you even believe the whole "found" it story. It could very well be an inside job. Gizmodo acted very stupid/arrogant/reckless in their reporting which is now coming to bite them. They published they paid for the device (from who was not the owner obviously), they stripped it down, they replied to the legal representatives of Apple in a flippant and ignorant manner, what did they really expect?

This isn't getting an early release of the production run iPad device, this is a prototype device protected by trade secret laws and ip laws. Even being in improper possession of it would be considered a felony, but they not only possessed it, they shout to the world that they bought it and then ripped it apart for all to see. Ugh its like a slow motion car wreck..

-ddn

Well, I'll be perfectly honest here. I got pretty disgusted with the entire article Gizmodo ran on the guy who lost it. I mean, they even published snapshots of his facebook.

I took issue with it, pointed out it was yellow journalism at best, gossip rag tripe at worst, and by the 6th article being condescending as hell towards the guy would they stop already? I mean, destroying someones reputation as thoroughly as you can is not exemplary of Journalistic integrity in any stretch of the imagination.

As a result, Chen decided to ban me. This also banned my star commenter account on i09 & Kotaku.

Thus, I sincerely hope Chen is found guilty and either fined heavily or convicted of the felony of trading in stolen goods. Some sweet, sweet Karma. (I no longer visit any gawker sites, as any platform that censors those who question its integrity is not worth my patronage, no matter how good its "reporting" may be).

Quote: Original post by Antheus
If he had kept it to himself, it would have been "ok".

He was selling it to highest bidder, but nobody wanted to get their hands dirty. That is a different thing from simply accidentally picking it up.

your links says specifically that he wasn't selling it at all.

But clearly, we should immediately jump to a giant greed filled conspiracy against apple's best interest.