Come take a look at the next iPhone

[Zevico]

What if he left his diary in a bar? Just out of curiosity.

In most cases I'd say the fact that it's a private diary, means that any person with common sense should realise that it's private. Oh yeah--the standard of 'knoweldge' is "knew or ought to have known."

[Zevico]

That is an extremely bizarre interpretation of law.

It doesn't matter if Apple wanted it to be secret. They left the 'secret' device in a public place. Secret, no more, no matter what their intentions were.

Apple's intentions--how it regards the information it keeps and makes, and the steps it takes to fulfil its intentions--are a core part of how you determine whether Apple's information is secret. If Apple tells all its employees "don't disclose information about our products", sues people who disclose information about it, takes strict security measures, and makes these policies public, common sense dictates that people who know about this should not be permitted to disclose that information if it comes into their hands. On the other hand if Apple takes people through factory tours and tells them all about the new features its products have, and then cries foul when those are published online--they haven't got a leg to stand on.

I understand that you think it is bizarre--I did as well when I studied it at first. I'll be the first to say that I'm sometimes uneasy about the free speech implications. This really is a value judgement made by society: what do we want to be secret, and protected as such? People will have different views on this moral/political issue. There aren't any statistical studies to say that one view is more conducive towards economic efficiency than another and hence more reasonable.

This area of the law is pure instinct, put down on paper. I've studied the case law on this, and it's the same in pretty much every (common law) country that covers it--including the US and Canada (to name two).

Lastly--I think that if we want to protect commercially important information, the law as it stands is the best way to go.

[Asher]

The reason your interpretation is bizarre is because it's wrong and borderline absurd, not because it's unusual.

If you leave a private diary in a public place, it is no longer private. You cannot charge someone with a crime for reading it.

If a product is so 'top secret' you let drunken 20-something employees use it in public, it is not a crime to pick it up and examine it when you find it, especially after you make an effort to locate its original owner.

[notyoueither]

And I happen to think at least one of them now is a criminal a-hole. I think what the s/w engineer did was sloppy and regrettable. However, if it's really true that Gizmodo paid the finder $10K, I think they're both criminals and I hope the DA agrees. No fraud involved here. There was a buyer and seller in property that did not belong to them, and the motive was profit. I don't see any significant free speech issue. And I, for one, don't expect Apple to be shy about talking to the prosecutor's office about this. I can't predict how it'll be handled, but I certainly am interested to find out.

On the other hand, I am not interested in visiting Gizmodo's web site. Apple has every right to share their secret exactly when they want to, in the fashion they want to do it. Gizmodo's site is filthy and I'm staying away!

That guy's legal analysis is breath-taking. I especially love the "motive was profit" part. What a ****ing douche.

Not an Apple fan, and not a lawyer, however...

There is no law against selling something that is not yours?

[Asher]

Not an Apple fan, and not a lawyer, however...

There is no law against selling something that is not yours?

How long do you keep possession of an object you leave in a public place? If I leave my cell phone in a bar, 7 years later do I still own it?

I'm obviously not a lawyer also, but it's my impression that when you leave items in public places and walk away you no longer own it. It can be returned to your as a courtesy but it's not a criminal case if someone takes it.

[Asher]

Apple's letter to Gizmodo:


Gizmodo's letter to Apple:

Bruce, thanks.
Here's Jason Chen, who has the iPhone. And here's his address. You two should coordinate a time.

[Blah Blah Blah Address]

Happy to have you pick this thing up. Was burning a hole in our pockets. Just so you know, we didn't know this was stolen when we bought it. Now that we definitely know it's not some knockoff, and it really is Apple's, I'm happy to see it returned to its rightful owner.

P.S. I hope you take it easy on the kid who lost it. I don't think he loves anything more than Apple.

[Asher]

So apparently the duration is 3 years. Here's Gizmodo's legal team:

(Our legal team told us that in California the law states, "If it is lost, the owner has three years to reclaim or title passes to the owner of the premises where the property was found. The person who found it had the duty to report it." Which, actually, the guys who found it tried to do, but were pretty much ignored by Apple. )

[Zevico]

If you leave a private diary in a public place, it is no longer private. You cannot charge someone with a crime for reading it.

Breach of confidentiality is a civil action.

I now understand that you were discussing this in the context of insulting someone for talking about breach of confidentiality as a crime. It is not a crime in any jurisdiction I'm aware of, unless perhaps it involves the disclosure of secret government documents, e.g. intelligence. Criminal sanctions for breach of confidentiality? Two words: (1) Draconian; (2) Moronic.

Reading a diary is not a breach of confidentiality. Reading is never a breach of confidentiality. Giving something to someone else to read when you know or ought to know that it is secret is a breach of confidentiality.
Wrongful disclosure of confidential information is at the "core" of the wrong of breach of confidentiality, whether you do it by publishing the contents of what you have read online, telling a friend about them on the phone, etc, if you knew or ought to have known that the information was secret.

it is not a crime to pick ...up [the diary] and examine it when you find it, especially after you make an effort to locate its original owner.

Perfectly true.

[Darius871]

I'm not even going to go into whether Zevico is wrong; let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and safely assume Aussie law is totally wack. USA! USA! USA!

[Zevico]

I'm not even going to go into whether Zevico is wrong; let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and safely assume Aussie law is totally wack. USA! USA! USA!

A quick glance at the wiki demonstrates that they aren't identical primarily because the statute law governs it in the US. However the statute is pretty much equivalent to the common law, judging from the wiki.

[Solomwi]

Not an Apple fan, and not a lawyer, however...

There is no law against selling something that is not yours?

In the criminal realm, the law generally requires the item be stolen. And profit motive isn't an element. Of course, the poster also ignored the question of whose it was. Even with California's three-year law, selling it before title passes may subject the finder to civil liability for conversion, but not criminal liability.

[Darius871]

A quick glance at the wiki demonstrates that they aren't identical primarily because the statute law governs it in the US. However the statute is pretty much equivalent to the common law, judging from the wiki.

Even going from the two-paragraph wiki for "breach of confidence" alone, you seem to be glossing over the operative word "duty," which presupposes some sort of peculiar relationship of trust and confidence between two parties, which does not exist between two total strangers who happened to visit the same bar. There might be such an issue in leaker/leakee scenarios, but this isn't one of them.

As has been said, at best there's only a property issue in that Apple still has title to the device itself, but its prompt return seems to bar any conversion claim against the purchaser and in any event I don't see how it would apply to merely describing the returned device's characteristics.

[Solomwi]

My post right above is meant generally. I completely agree that there's probably no conversion claim in this particular case, and Gizmodo seems to have bought the opportunity to inspect the thing, rather than bought the thing itself.

[Asher]

Man, Apple fans have sticks up their asses.

Re: the letters between Apple and Gizmodo:

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/20/apple-we-want-device-back/

It's the flippant, disrespectful (using "Bruce," not "Mr. Sewell," the "burning a hole in our pockets" line and calling the unfortunate late-20s employee who lost the phone "the kid") tone that permeates this letter -- and, indeed, their handling of the entire ordeal -- that irks me. Also, there's no conceivable way they can claim that they didn't know it was Apple's property, "found" or not.

We don't know how this story will end, but Giz's adolescent, "Whoops-a-daisy" mockery won't win them any new fans.

Enjoy those "warm, fuzzy, huggy feelings of legal compliance."

HOW DARE THEY NOT REFER TO AN APPLE LAWYER AS MR. SEWELL. The nerve! Don't they know how awesome Apple is? THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS MATTER.

Apparently these ****ers at the Apple blogs have no idea what Gizmodo's style is. Hint: It's not New York Times-style journalism.

I also like how there's "no conceivable way" they can claim they didn't know it was Apple's property, but anyone with a ****ing brain knows that until they got their hands ON the thing, they couldn't prove one way or another if it was APPLE'S PROPERTY or not. In fact, many of the Mac fanboys were insisting up until that letter came that this was a "cheap Japanese knockoff". Holy ****, these people piss me off.

Then all of the follow-up comments by readers of one of the most pathetic, biased sites on the 'net are talking about why they don't read Gizmodo, because they lack integrity like that and are "biased" (I don't even know how the **** this makes sense in this context?)

[Asher]

Not to mention a good chunk of them are still thinking this is all one, big elaborate fake by Gizmodo.

Jesus ****ing Christ these people need help.

A huge number of them are proclaiming they are "done" with Gizmodo after this. WTF. I'm so confused about how these people operate in the real world.