Under California law dating back well over 100 years, anyone who finds lost property and who knows the identity of the property's likely owner is guilty of theft if they appropriate the property for their own uses instead of returning it.
(emphasis mine)
Easy defense.
When it comes to consumer goods, the manufacturer is quite often not the owner. Even as a prototype, Apple could have easily sold it to a suppliers or another company for testing (such as AT&T) or manufacturing accessories for it (such as a neat case to make it look like a 3gs).
Someone could also believe it was a Foxconn owned Apple prototype (do people honestly believe Foxconn employees don't have access, and don't visit Cupertino?).
With Apple's secrecy, no outside person can tell which companies Apple had or had not made prototypes available to.
Additionally, and the BEST defense is the fact that IT WAS a protype that has not been unveiled.
At the time the device was totally different from any design that Apple had released or unveiled, with its lack of curved edges, delicate glass on both sides, thin aluminum band around the outside.
No one at that time would have looked at it and said "that's the iPhone".
At that time, the iPhone WAS the 3GS. Had any layman familiar with the 2010 current iPhone seen the protype, they'd have said "What the F is that"?!?
And with all the fake handsets that were out there, it could have been (and WAS) believed to be a fake.
It wasn't until Giz opened it and properly identified KNOWN Apple hardware & chips that the owner was clearly Apple. ANYONE can stamp an Apple logo and some text on a device.
So even the middlemen would legally be pretty safe in saying they couldn't know that Apple
was the owner.
But really, IMO the statute of limitations should expire pretty quick for this case. And definitely not continue past Apple's discontinuation of the model.
Even more importantly, if I has a say, Apple would have to show that their income and profits were grossly damaged by the leaking/sale (which they wouldn't be able to show at all, because if anything, Apple gained MORE press and garnered more demand from the unusual exposure).
Something found and sold shouldn't be a crime. Something stolen and sold already is and should be punishable.
Totally agree.
What's to stop anyone from back-peddling and saying the item they threw away was actually 'lost'?
Such as if a man throws out a cardboard box, then later realizes it had a wad of cash in it.
Suddenly the box wasn't discarded, but is now lost, and anyone who had previously found the lost box is suddenly a criminal. JUST because the guy changed his mind.
