Slashdot Mirror
Is Gawker's "Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt" Illegal?
theodp writes "Not too surprisingly, Apple was not amused by Valleywag's announcement of an Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt, which offered cash prizes ranging from 10K-100K for info about the much-anticipated new Apple device. The promo prompted a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Apple's lawyers, which Valleywag deemed the most concrete evidence yet that there may indeed be a tablet in the works. But is the Scavenger Hunt really illegal, as the attorney claimed? The jury's still out, but Slate concludes Apple's got a pretty good case, although it notes that Valleywag's unconventional Scavenger Hunt 'stunt' may not really be all that different from 'reporting' practiced by mainstream publications like the WSJ."
I for one am sick of hearing about the apple tablet... either come out with it or dont but stop the crap
The whole idea behind this question is to show that offering to pay someone to do something illegal is, in itself, illegal. Now are they asking someone to do something illegal? That is another question. In order to deliver the information they seek, is the party required to do something illegal? Surely it may be something where a civil law suit may result, but is such law limited to criminal acts?
If they had actually _required_ that submissions be obtained within the bounds of the law, there's nothing Apple could have remotely done to them about this, even if they don't happen to like it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Now that their controlled leaks (reference) has created too much hype, Apple is leaking in their pants and fear that the thing will go too far. If would be Apple, I would say Good luck to Gawker and thanks for all the free publicity.
Most of the people with "inside info" are going to be under confidentiality contracts. The web site is under less risk than the sources. The lawsuits they face will dwarf the 100K max offer.
The Apple tablet will feature a 9.5'' by 7.5'' display using a new version of E-Ink(TM) technology through which the tablet will display color while having the display consume no power unless something changes. There will be an integrated and optimized sleep mode which the tablet can fall into while maintaining a color picture, and this mode takes a mere 135 ms to get out of, so even applications like slideshows will use it. The processor has multiple power modes, allowing it to go between 500 MHz and 3.7 GHz depending on the task. Expected battery life, with all this, is 18-36 hours of average use. The screen will contain piezoelectric materials that can add a tactile layer to the onscreen keyboard. Professional typists have been found to be 80-90% as effective with this keyboard as with a traditional one, and thanks to ridges being put onto window edges and buttons blind people are seeing a GUI productivity increase of 300-400%.
What do you mean, that's all bullshit? Prove it! I'll be collecting my prize for now.
The whole idea behind this question is to show that offering to pay someone to do something illegal is, in itself, illegal.
So in your world, telling someone about a company's products is the same as murder?
Now are they asking someone to do something illegal?
Such as?
Last time I checked, telling people about a company's product isn't illegal.
Now, they may *possibly* be asking people to break and NDA, but that would be a civil matter, not a criminal one, and therefore it wouldn't be illegal.
Ooh, Apple is building some next generation super-secret technology and even speaking about it will get you lawyered into oblivion. They're just artificially creating marketing hype.
"Ben Sheffner is an attorney at NBC Universal"
Which explains the bias I detected in the article. I repeatedly found the examples he used to support Apple's hypothetical "case" to be missing key details.
That's not to say Apple doesn't have a case (I have no idea really) but I'm always suspicious of people who intentionally omit important details.
They're encouraging people to divulge internal information about a company that a company itself isn't willing to make publicly available yet. It'd be like AMD making a contest to confirm wild speculation and to divulge information about new Intel chips. It's more or less a corporate espionage contest. Nowhere is it even close to a media outlet paying for pictures or an exclusive. It's asking people to subvert information about upcoming Apple products. The lawyers at Apple are likely are doing Valleywag a favor by telling them to pull the contest. The blog would be liable for instigating and promoting the stunt. To me, it'd be like a radio station telling people to hold their piss for a Wii (did happen, a lady died, and the radio company paid money). It's just a bad idea.
.... to car magazines paying a bounty for pix of yet to be released models?
IANAL but this could be considered "Corporate Espionage" which could be illegal because depending on how you look at it the fact they are offering cash for trade secrets, corporate secrets and otherwise proprietary information may be considered bribery (although bribery is rarely made public like this)
I'd wager it's illegal - the "prize" is really just an open bounty on industrial espionage. Not sure, but that sounds pretty illegal to me. This isn't a scavenger hunt for "an apple, a blue dress, and page 297 from the phone book". This is the hunt for corporate secrets. Pretty clear cut to me and I'd image that high priced lawyers can make it even more clear cut than I can.
While Apple may be keeping it under wraps, it is still conceivable that Apple may expose someone to the tablet without making them sign an NDA. A preemptive lawsuit ASSUMES that everyone that knows about the tablet is under NDA, but you can never make that assumption.
If this scavenger hunt is illegal, it would also be illegal for me to offer $10k to anyone who brings me the top-secret Microsoft Phone. For it to be illegal, Apple has to admit that there are specific NDAs stopping their employees from saying anything about their tablet. Without official confirmation of a specific NDA, there's no reason this should be illegal. I don't know that there could be NDAs for the Microsoft Phone, so why should it be illegal to offer a reward for it?
One company offering money for independent operators to acquire a sample of another company's beta product. Life is more like Shadowrun every day.
I think if the nature of Apple's controlled leaks gets to be put up for grabs here, then what defense does Apple have?
Quite frankly I just want Apple to shit or get off the pot. It's been nearly a decade and a half that the supposed tablet's been rumored. Let's either get it out or say once adn for all, "NO."
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
This may be a bit off topic - but don't people have better things to do? I, for one, will likely come across one of the many news stories that are sure to be published if/when Apple releases this thing. At that point, I will read the story, read reviews, visit Apple's web site, and determine if this device is something I would like to purchase.
Until then, I'm going to go do other things.
Why, no, I haven't meta-moderated lately. Thanks for asking!
It's possible to find this information legally.
There's certain places in the world that have different views on IP law, and while contractually bound from doing such a thing here, such provision might not hold up there.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
It is fully within Apple's right to send the cease-and-desist letters to Valleywag. Its basically telling them "if you continue this, we will sue you for damages, and we will win." I see no action taken by the attorney general on anyone's behalf, since almost all speech -- even speech prohibited by another party by contract -- is protected by the US constitution. However, the constitution does not protect you from the consequences of that speech, including being sued for large sums of money.
What if Valleywag received word that Apple was using lead and arsenic in their new tablet product. How could it be illegal for them to publish this information?
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
In order for something to be a trade secret, they have to keep it secret. A photo snapped in public should be clear for publication.
Remember now, it's big business that dictates what is legal and illegal now.
The hell with the US Congress and the constitution, we all know corporate
America is calling the shots now.
I, for one, am ready to lead the revolution.
"It would not be possible for Noah to do in our day what he was permitted to do in his own...The inspector would come and examine the Ark, and make all sorts of objections." -- Mark Twain
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Is much more exciting, http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/17/asus-dr-570-e-reader-to-sport-6-inch-oled-color-screen-122-hour?icid=sphere_blogsmith_inpage_engadget
Can you sue someone for something that does not exist? So far Apple denies the existance of a tablet what ground do they have to go after this hunt for information?
Get used to it. It is exactly the same kind of campaign /. ran the six months before (and two years after, too) the iPhone came out. They are getting paid to feature articles about Apple products. It is the only way to explain why there have been hundreds of iPhone articles and about one (1) about N900 which is a phone that kicks iPhone's butt in every possible way. With free software to boot. I guess it keeps the bills payed.
Football Odds
If the contest were to get images of the tablet in public, it too would be legal. But when would that happen? Realistically, never.
Cars however to be well tested, have to be driven on real roads - and so are out in public often enough that people can get perfectly legal spy shots (though the cars usually have some kind of misleading or obscuring trim).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personally, it's my opinion that Gawker sites aren't real news sites and they rely on controversial things, like this to get people looking at their sites. For instance, looking at Kotaku reveals that it's mainly just a bunch of low grade crap that you used to find on someone's Geocities site. The stuff of real substance can be found elsewhere on a site like Edge Online and you don't have to sift through the crap that's padding out the site to get you looking at more ads.
They really are just paparazzi "journalists" and we don't really need their type plaguing the technology sector. It would be nice if they went away.
If the same thing happened to Microsoft, for example they could have said, "We offer you cash to provide proof that Microsoft has done [insert random suspicious act here], but please try to do it legally." Well, I wonder how fast Microsoft's lawyers would have been loosed on whoever made that offer.
Indeed - it's the new Duke Nukem Forever. I suppose the Daily Iphone Story is getting old hat, so now it's moving on to vaporware. I could understand it if the point was to ridicule (as with DNF), but I get the feeling that these stories are serious...
I suspect many posters here are completely ignorant of the non-vaporware actual tablet devices that currently exist, due to the lack of coverage on them, and therefore claim the Apple tablet (if it's ever released) to be the another Apple "first". And then use that as an argument for why it should receive so much coverage! It's a circular self-fulfilling prophecy.
If the Apple Tablet didn't exist, the lawyers wouldn't be sending the C&D. People wouldn't sign an NDA if there's nothing to disclose. Maybe the lawyers just want to claim the prize money. Either way, if no one is induced to say anything to Valleywag, no money is paid. Where's the crime?
It's a very dark ride.
really, who does ?
idiot grad for headlines about news of no import whatosever.
rather probably orchestrated by Apple marketing.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
And they've acted many time to VIOLATE your RIGHT to FREE SPEECH.
But of course you guys are just pragmatists, you just use what "just works" right?
Grow up and wake up. Fight for a future that isn't dominated by humanity hating bullies.
In exchange for not getting sued they're basically being locked down to where they can no longer directly post any "leaked" information on any of their websites, and they're being told they have to notify apple of the source.
This guy gets to the heart of the matter--that the scavenger hunt itself is not illegal, but that it may prompt someone to do something illegal--and he gets modded offtopic. Only on /.
It seems to me that Apple's legal threat is tacit admission that the iTablet (or whatever such a product would be called) exists. I mean, how can you sue for inducing someone to violate the trade secret that a particular product does not exist? Is that even a trade secret?
One could argue that for something to be illegal you must break a law or even the "spirt" of a law. You can't be braking the law by asking for information or proof of something, even if it were classified unless you were asking someone to break the law to obtain the information. Even breaking an NDA is not braking the law, its violating the terms of a contract and that is the only rub, and even then it's only a civil penalty (which you don't have to pay, really there can be issues, but you won't go to jail for not paying, but that's for another time). You can sue someone for anything, just like you can send a C&D letter to anyone for anything.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
This is a clause from Gawkers contest rules:
By submitting any photo or information to Gawker Media, you hereby represent and warrant that the submitted photo or information does not and shall not infringe on any copyright, any rights of privacy or publicity of any person, or any other right of any third party, and you have the right to grant any and all rights and licenses granted to Gawker Media herein, including but not limited to all necessary rights under copyright, free and clear of any claims or encumbrances;
That makes it pretty clear that they don't expect people to share information illegally.
I guess everyone involved gets some publicity though.
No, it doesn't. The disclaimer only covers copyright violations. There are plenty of laws you can break besides copyright law.
Hey, there's a prize if you RTFA this time! And here you are, talking about Apple's next shiny gadget. What a bunch of nerds.
Apple would have to show actual or potential economic value (loss) for any information released, which after disclosure on the 27th by Apple would no longer enjoin trade secret status. Apples losses would be for a period of less than 9 days now. There hasn't been time for competition to take advantage of any 'leaks' for perhaps 6 - 10 months? Certainly not since Apple cornered the market on 10.1 inch LCDs.
18 USC 1832 is a bit more explicit.
The AG would need to show Gawker benefited economically and that Apple was knowingly or intentionally injured by the premature release of the soon to be non trade secret information.
One might imagine that the lawyer authoring the C and D being apprised of economic loss as a result would have been compelled as an officer of the court to contact the justice department under 18 USC 1832? Instead we get a Cease and Desist letter citing the California Civil Code as harassment in an apparent attempt to maintain monopoly control over any premature leaks - imagine the defense seeking discovery on any managed leaks to the media by Apple.
Which is going to garner you the most hype from the Tech news media?
A) Hinting that you may have a tablet in the pipeline
or
B) Having one of your PR folks get a site to start a scavenger hunt for info and then have lawyer threaten said site over the hunt.
You presume the only way to get information about an Apple product is through illegal means.
"It would not be possible for Noah to do in our day what he was permitted to do in his own...A bunch of lawyers would come and examine the Ark, make all sorts of objections and sue Noah out of existence." -- neoshroom
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
This is really interesting and I'm surprised there have not been a whole host of potential problems like this one for media begging for leaks on new products. Check out tech wars here:
http://mockofshame.com/technology/tech-wars/