This should be obvious to any adult that ever held a job ever, but whatever you produce during work hours (or even outside of work hours, depending on your contract) and while being paid by your employer does not and will not ever belong to you. This is not exclusive to Apple. This is common practice among most (if not all) companies, regardless of sector. If you take information and materials from one employer to the next, even if you were the person responsible for the code/design/whatever, it's theft. Plain and simple.
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Apple Accuses Former Employee of Stealing Vision Pro Secrets
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This should be obvious to any adult that ever held a job ever, but whatever you produce during work hours (or even outside of work hours, depending on your contract) and while being paid by your employer does not and will not ever belong to you. This is not exclusive to Apple. This is common practice among most (if not all) companies, regardless of sector. If you take information and materials from one employer to the next, even if you were the person responsible for the code/design/whatever, it's theft. Plain and simple.
At least Apple isn't waiting like 5 years to file lawsuits anymore. God on them. I hope the dude get's smashed in half. Anti-Poaching laws need to be written specifically for the tech sector. I think the FCC or the FTC killed this back in like 2012 or something and it's been nothing but an infringement jungle ever since.
crazy that they aren’t seeking jail time. you have to assume Snap has already analyzed the stolen data. returning it doesn’t solve the problem. he stole IP
Are you serious? Do you expect him to get a slap on the wrist for what he did? Dude didn't take a few Apple tshirts with him when he left the company, he stole company secrets about one of their projects.
Do you have data that shows that with apples to apples comparisons (pun intended)? For example, is Apple’s turnover (not to be confused with apple turnovers) within its engineering departments higher than other large corporation engineering departments doing similar things?
Broad comparisons at a company level are meaningless.
you mean you want to get rid of the Sherman antitrust Act that was passed in the 80s? unless you're on the board of trustee of a fortune 500, you have 0 personal interest in keeping yourself from better jobs and opportunities.
because apple is not a state official, they can only seek civil damages, jail time can only be prosecuted by govt entities.
The problem is that most jobs and most employees can't steal 2GBs of data and crash a multi-billion dollar business with it. His ass needs to get smashed to fubits.
If they can prove that he stole the info (which it seems they can), at the bare minimum this should trigger an independent audit to figure out what information (if any) has actually been handed over to Snap. Worst-case scenario for this guy, he ends up being sued by both Apple and Snap (which will claim that they never knew the info was stolen from Apple). He probably won't face jail time, but he might become financially wrecked. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I guess...
I didn't really mean to compare Apple to anyone, that's what the article does. I just said Apple has a high turnover rate, end of story.
Oh you want to bet? Some public information is available to back this, just try to recall a certain lady that made a fuss around equality of pay men vs women at Apple. Apple does reserve the right to search your own private phone, I guarantee they do that. As someone else said on here - whether it can be legally enforced or not is another thing.
It apparently wasn't very clear to the person I was replying to, as they were heavily implying that it might not be considered stealing if the work is yours. They were also implying that this loss of ownership rights over what you produce when on a company's payroll is somehow exclusive to Apple/Apple employees, which it very much is not.
They them like seriously dude...
You replied to me as far out of context as possible just to have something to say. It was a rhetorical question supposed to have you think a little bit beyond the headline of this article.
You, or basically 99.9% of people who will read this article have zero clue as to what data he took with him. I merely suggested it could be his work, his work that maybe Apple turn down or didn't want, or maybe he couldn't get it further because getting though his bully manager was a PITA, maybe now Apple saw Snap take his idea and make it work and Apple realized they have the right to claim, who knows. Just giving out ideas to make people think in different directions other than the narrative...
I worked for a US IT company for the last 8 years, and a couple months back, I got made redundant/laid off (I'm based in the UK).
My laptop contained tonnes of documents and files, many of them personal. I also had tonnes of files in the company's One Drive cloud storage, and lots of personal stuff in One Note. I know I shouldn't have done, but I blurred the lines between using my laptop as primarily my work device, and a personal device. (In the evenings, and weekends, I'd watch Apple TV or Neflix on it, etc.)
Anyhow - during my 'gardening leave' I copied all of my stuff into my own One Drive - in total around 22GB of data, mainly made up some of my video projects in Camtasia, Premiere Pro, After Effects, etc. I worked hard on those projects and developed certain techniques and tricks which I didn't just want to leave. I guess by copying this makes me a thief, too! But I'm not trying to profit from it or sell it to another company. I just wanted to retain the things I worked on so that I could refer back to them when/if necessary... I suspect many people are in the same boat when they leave a company.
And no, I'm not defending this guy. He went to a competing company after downloading top secret product plans and roadmaps - that's definitely a no-no, and I think Apple is right to take action on this.
I'm surprised Apple hasn't compartmentalized development so that people just work on one component without needing access to most of the rest of the devices info.
sure, how much you want to wager that accessing this guy's laptop would not be possible without a court order during discovery.
"The California Court of Appeal held that a home computer is “subject to inspection,” but discovery must be constrained to relevant, non-privileged information . A broad, privacy-invading search is improper; instead, courts require:
- Demonstrated relevance to a party’s claims or defenses.
- Protective orders limiting scope (e.g., filter for personal content).
- A balancing of the privacy invasion against the need for evidence"
TBG Ins. Servs. Corp. v. Superior Ct., 96 Cal. App. 4th 443, 443 (2002)
That usually depends on the value of what was stolen.
Don't be so dramatic, no one thinks Apple should be able to lock him up.
Of course it will be up to the prosecutor, but if discovery shows that he did more than simply download an archive of his work and planned on profiting form the data either through his new job or independent sale then it should be treated as grand felony and he should get a proportional financial penalty and probably prison time.
so you want to throw out the legislative and community's balance of interests out the window for one guy? this sounds more prejudicial to me than reasonableness.
Okay, we're talking about a phone. A phone someone brought to work often. Stop arguing with me, I know what I'm saying and I wouldn't say it if I didn't know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying?
They will schedule a meeting with your manager, take you to a room, ask you to give them your phone. It's in your contract. You don't - you have something to hide. You do, you're screwed. What do you do? And they can totally do this to you, trust me. Maybe they can't legally enforce it, maybe they can. Maybe some day you will have a contract with Apple and will know what I'm talking about.
a phone is still personal property, that private entities such as apple does not have the right to intrude without judicial oversight.
Yeah it's like cop pulling you over and asking you to get out of your car. You don't have to, but do you know that you don't have to?
thats an assumption that just because you aren't willing to consent to search means you have something to hide. they cannot do anything but terminate you as that is their only course of action. and you are correct, they cannot legally enforce it without a judicial oversight, maybe some day you will learn about constitutional law and will know what i'm talking about.
thats different, thats a state entity, apple is not a state agency nor its enforcement agency.