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Police Seize Gizmodo Editor's Computers and Other Property Related to Lost Next-Generation iPhone

Busted!

now that all the hype has gone, someone could think that maybe it was a robery, that the apple employee has been followed and the phone stoled.

Why did the person did not left the phone in the lost&found box in the bar?
Why did the person called apple? because they knew it was a prototype, otherwise he would call the phone company or any, any number in the addressbook.

let see what happens to gizmodo, the tmz of tech! peace
 
drummingcraig said:
*Bolding Mine*

What Gizmodo did was certainly questionable behavior, but frankly...I am tired of seeing the "stolen property" argument come into play. Unless you personal know the individual(s) who found the phone at the bar and were there with them and can attest otherwise, its only fair to believe their story (for now). They claim to have asked around the bar for the owner before giving up, and not only that but they attempted to contact Apple directly to return the damn thing (to no avail). The phone was bricked the next day so they had no way of double checking the (suspected) owners info or get his number. Short of driving to Apple and walking in there with the thing, I would say that they made an honest effort to return it. You act like they picked the thing out of the guy's pocket and then FedEx'd it to Gizmodo the next morning. :rolleyes:
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I'll accept as true everything Gizmodo claims its seller told them he did, and I'll accept as true that everything the seller reportedly said to Gizmodo was true. If you find someone's cell phone at a bar, you don't reasonably and justly attempt to get it back to its owner by simply waving it in the air and asking if it belongs to anyone without shouting distance, and then, once you discover it is a very valuable prototype that belongs to Apple, Inc. instead of some random iPhone purchaser, lob phone calls into a general switchboard or AppleCare. The very least you do is to notify the management of the bar that you found somebody's lost phone, and you give them your name and phone number. Or you leave the phone with the bar's management. Or you deliver it to the police department. Or you send a fax to Apple's general counsel with a photo of the identifying code number attached to the back. Or you call the person whose name you know from his Facebook page that you accessed on the phone. Or you FedEx a letter to person after finding it on PeopleSearch. Or you post a "Found" notice in the bar. Or you ask your mother what you should do.

Any one of these things would have reunited the owner with the phone, but the Seller did none of them. Just throwing his hands up in the air after the CSR of AppleCare couldn't help him and promptly setting about finding the highest bidder for a phone he didn't own is not what an honest person would have done. The seller was a thief, and Gizmodo, knowing his story knew they was receiving goods from a thief, and paying him $5,0000.

You roll your eyes; I'm slowly shaking my head.
 
TaterBoss said:
At what point does Gizmodo say Journalism begins and therefore they are immune from prosecution? (Immune may be the wrong word)

1) A device is left behind at a bar by the owner.

2) Someone, not the owner, picks it up and takes it home. After trying at the bar multiple times to find the rightful owner even staying a few hours for the man to come back.

3) Someone, not the owner, snoops around the data in the device.

All the man did was try to take a picture and check the owners facebook page so he could find out who lost it.

4) Someone makes a half-assed attempt to return the device, before deciding they would rather sell it.
Calling and emailing apple on the matter is hardly a half ass attempt what else would you have done.

5) Gizmodo buys the device, not from the owner, but from the person who kept it.

6) Gizmodo pokes around the device, takes pictures, shows off "serial numbers" on the device.
This is just plain wrong as everyone knows that apple remotely shut off the software before gizmodo ever got their hands on it.

7) Gizmodo TAKES THE THING APART! Remember, this is not their device. It AT LEAST belongs to Apple, if not the person who left it at the bar.
This is very wrong of gizmodo.

8) Gizmodo names the person who lost the device, embarrassing him at least, endangering his employment, etc etc etc. This does not really matter as apple already knew who lost it

9) Gizmodo publishes photos and details of a device they do not own = who knows how many corporate secret laws they broke there.
This is mac rumors. 99% of the front page articles especially around a press conference time of year are pictures of devices such as this one.

10) Gizmodo grins - We are journalists!

Now, what if that device had been anything but an iPhone? Instead of "device," read this back with anything else in it's place. Medicine? A new weapon? An 8 slice toaster with built-in Wifi. A new design for a frisbee.

Do the rules changes because it's an "i-something?"
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They bought it before the knew it was actually an iphone. If it was not real no one would care because fake device pictures are always all over. What the police did was wrong. Their was nothing that was not gizmodos property on those computers. Yes their were photos but by the time this seizing happened they had already spread to 1000s of sites including this one.
 
Dr Kevorkian94 said:
definition journalist: A journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. His or her work is acknowledged as journalism.

so yes they are journalists
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Your dictionary definition may be correct but I'm sure the courts have and will decide otherwise.
 
its all trade secrets

If anyone still believes this is about stolen goods they are grossly mistaken.

This is all about trade secrets.

This is tantamount to posting the formula for Coca Cola on the internet, the damage the Coca-Cola Company would suffer might be in the billions of dollars (considering they sell nearly 30 billion units of their product annually). I have no doubt Apple feels they've been harmed to more than just a small theft.

Consider this case from 2006 (actually involving Coca Cola):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/05/AR2006070501717.html


The only difference is that gizmodo didn't offer it to Microsoft/Google, they offered it to everyone and all they asked for was more advertising click-thru's.
 
Sorry if it's been already mentioned (I didn't read all 27 pages of threads) but it sure sounds like someone doesn't believe the timeline. Perhaps Apple or the police think there's a chance the prototype found it's way to the editor before it was remotely wiped. That's would surely explain the siezure of his computer equipment.
 
Erwin-Br said:
Gawker, Apple... There's not much difference between them. They're both unethical companies that would do almost anything for a buck. :D
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I'll bite -- give me an example of a large, ethical company. Curious what your definition is.
 
The COO of Gizmodo is a) not a lawyer, b) an idiot, c) all of the above.

Section 1070 of the California Evidence Code specifically exists to protect sources of information from discovery in the course of a legal proceeding. It does not protect evidence relating to the commission of a crime.

The source of all information pertaining to the item is Gizmodo itself, as they were in possession of the item and not receiving any information from a third party, and they went out of their way to publicly disclose and profit from that disclosure, information pertaining to the item they obtained illegally (under both California statutes as well as the Uniform Commercial Code of the U.S.).

Furthermore, the item in question is a prototype, obvious to Gizmodo since every single news item they published about it acknowledged that they knew what they had in their possession was not an existing iPhone model currently on the market, but a prototype of an upcoming model. Violating Apple's right to trade secrets, and knowingly acquiring goods considered stolen under California law, are most likely going to be the areas out from under which Mr. Chen's legal defense will have to try to wriggle.

Under Section 485 of the California Penal Code, Mr. Chen can be convicted for theft. Grand theft, actually, given the value of the prototype and/or transaction.

Under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Mr. Chen can be convicted for misappropriation of a trade secret.

These are two felonies, neither of which have anything to do with the disclosure of a source of information. He is by all accounts the source of the information, and not an innocent party conveying information about a crime committed by a third person.
 
I guess I was on target when I posted this, on Gizmodo no less, a couple of days ago...

340x.jpg
 
ethana said:
Give me a break dude. The majority of people are good people. This is a bullsh** comment.
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OK, I'll admit that -but I used that to make a point that in Countries like Japan, people would be shamed to heck by their family and friends if they ever did something like tried to sell lost and found items for profit. Go back and read my post in context - In North America there is more of a "Finders Keepers" undertow, and I think we should try to do better in North America than "Finders Keepers".

It's wrong to sell found items, hours after they have been lost. You gotta agree with me about that right?
 
Warbrain said:
And even if they were classified as journalists they wouldn't be protected by the shield law in this case. That protects sources, not them form doing illegal acts.
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Yep - updated my post. Gawker says that they aren't a new source. They hold a quote from Forbes, which calls it a blog.
 
jaykk said:
What if they find something else incriminating in his personal laptop ( tax evasion for example?) will he get charged for additional crimes?
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i hope not but with US laws it could easily be that unrelated evidence found in a criminal investigation can be lawfully used against you. this is for a lawyer to answer. but I'm quite pessimistic for chen's future regardless who is morally right here. if they throw the book at him it will really hurt. lots of money involved and likely a felony.
 
This is beyond stupid ...

There's really nothing left to say ... but it's me, so I will. Regardless of how it happened or what he paid, Jason can into possession of this phone. As a public relations practitioner, I personally would have preferred to see Jason contact Apple's PR people, let them know what he had and negotiate for some serious scoops for the foreseeable future. Blackmail, yes, but at least it would protect the launch. Apple has enough going on that a minor scoop here and there coupled with Jason making predictions about the new iPhone that miraculously come true would have been quid pro quo. Sadly, in my professional opinion Jason made a bad choice. That said, as an Apple fanatic, I was pleased to see Jason exercise his other option/journalistic right, to report the news. The fact that Apple has almost Gestapo-like power is a like F@$%ing ridiculous. It's just a F@$%ing phone people ... let me make a few predictions ... 1) Apple stock will continue to rise up until June 22nd. 2) the new phone will be announced and there will be profit taking. 3) Apple will crush every analysts expectation for earnings in its Q3 report, because of a$$holes like me with 11 month old iPhones who will line up to buy the new model, and the stock will soar (again). 4) Those of us who do buy the new phone will be extremely disappointed by the fact that despite the included features, AT&T and Verizon in Q1 2011, will not allow video conferencing over 3 or 4G. Am I Nostradamus, nope ... at least I don't think so ... this is common sense. Which brings us back to my initial point ... WHO GIVES A SH..!
 
saxamoophone said:
I'm curious how much of a case there is. Any legal experts want to chime in?
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Well some already did: The Mateo County DA's office who likely checked this out so they wouldn't look like asses in court. And Apple's lawyers. Gawker's lawyers may have weighed in before the purchase, but their argument was in the COO's letter. You can tell their opinions based on whats happening. I am sure they will explain it all. In court.

What everyone is also forgetting is that Gawker may very well have known they were committing a crime but done it anyways.

1. Break the iphone story and get hits
2. Be on TV for that.
3. Get a court case, and get hits for that
4. Be on TV for that
5. End up with a settlement/the loss of a blogger/ some career damage to some bloggers (who, lets be honest, are basically just people who like gadgets and not that hard to replace)
6. Lose some readers who think Giz is slimy..but most will be back.
7. ?????
8. Profit!

And again, to all the people saying "we hang on the teat of every blurry photo, but now that ones been stolen, we are reversing sides": We aren't. A photo is a spy shot. A spied SKU is available information. None of the info involves stealing. This does. If you think blurry shots of prototypes is the same as this, contact Car And Driver: they post spy shots all the time.
 
M-5 said:
So if you lose something, and I return it but you refuse to take it, I'm supposed to hand it over to the police?
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Obviously, your use of two yous makes it seem like the same person, which it is not. If I lost something, you found it and tried to return it to my parents, but they refused it, then I haven't refused it -- they did and it's still mine.
 
katiepea said:
theres no middle ground here jackass, seriously please commit suicide asap, your social contributions to this world will benefit exactly none of us. you also should learn how to use contractions properly when you're calling other people dumb. "your"? you're*
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The level of discussion has sunk to yet another new low.
 
awesomator said:
The phone was returned to apple before they seizes his house.
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Apart from Gizmodo, which cannot be treated as a reliable source, who else can confirm it?

In your case, it might have been returned, but that doesn't mean it wasn't stolen.
 
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