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They purchased known stolen property and used it to make some money before returning it. That's illegal and I don't see why they shouldn't be held responsible
by amock 16y ago
They purchased known stolen property and used it to make some money before returning it. That's illegal and I don't see why they shouldn't be held responsible for what they did.
- rtrunck 16y ago"Known stolen property" When was that ever established?
- sophacles 16y agoNo. They purchased a phone "found at a bar". They acted in good faith that it had been lost. When asked to return the property, they did. There are exceptions for good faith actions in most "receiving stolen goods" type laws for a reason.
- jolan 16y agoThey're probably after the guy who sold it to Gizmodo since he didn't act in good faith.
- itg 16y agooh please don't pretend to be naive and as if you know all the legal implications of what happened
- rufo 16y agoSeveral sites have posted excerpts of California's penal code detailing how not returning lost property is equivalent to theft. Between that and the half-assed attempts of the "finder" to try to return the phone, according to California state law, the phone is almost certainly considered stolen.
- wmf 16y agoDisassembling the phone and posting pictures on the Web for profit then returning the phone counts as good faith?
- sophacles 16y agoBuying an item that is not blatantly restricted (e.g. is not marijuana), on claims of the seller that it is legit, is good faith. Further, upon request from the original owner, it was returned. This is also good faith... aka "oops my bad". What they did in between is called "I do stuff to my property", and perfectly ok. Note: this was my thinking before I found out CA has weird laws about this (see other replies in this thread).
- wmf 16y agoThere's no way to legitimately acquire a 4G iPhone prototype. So if the seller said "I've got a 4G iPhone here" then it sounds like he was basically admitting at least theft of trade secrets.
- darrenkopp 16y agodo you have a better idea on how to prove that a non-working iphone in a case that looks like an iphone 3gs but has some differences is in fact the next iphone?
- wmf 16y agoThat's the thing: Gizmodo didn't need to "prove" anything. IMO good faith would have been returning it to Apple without blogging about the device.
- jfoutz 16y agoI found a wallet, and gave it back to the owner. vs. I found bobs wallet, he was embarrassed about the condom that expired last year. Making money on the story about the expired condom is tacky, but i don't think it's in bad faith. bob got his wallet back, not a dollar missing. Buying the wallet from a junkie who's more that capable of giving bob his wallet back, that's not right.
- qq66 16y agoRead up on the lost property laws in California. The person who found it had an obligation to return it to the proprietor of the bar, who had an obligation to return it to the original owner for the next three years. Under the law, it was stolen.
- ezy 16y agoLet me get this straight. If someone offers to sell you a cellphone (any cellphone) that they "found", you're going to buy it and keep it until the owner of said property tracks you down and asks for it? And this is "good faith"? I call bullshit. Especially since it was an iPhone prototype. You know it's Apple's property, you know they want it, and you know how to contact them. You also know that the person selling it to you knows the same thing -- they're selling it, after all. You are participating in breaking the law by buying it from them unless you're buying it with the intent of immediately returning it and reporting the offender to the police. Really, that's the end of the story. The rest is bullshit.
- logic 16y ago"You know it's Apple's property." More to the point: the folks at Gizmodo, being reporters on this very industry, were uniquely positioned to know exactly what the phone was. The five thousand dollars that exchanged hands drives home that point. They'll have a very difficult time mounting an ignorance-based defense here.