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Is Gawker's "Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt" Illegal?

Posted by timothy on from the best-publicity-can't-be-bought dept.

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."

5 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. It's in the wording, I think.... by mark-t · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ""We encourage you to stay within the bounds of the law", they say. The problem, I think, is that "encourage" isn't enough.

    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.

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    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:It's in the wording, I think.... by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yup, if they're smart they'd have just put a checkbox on the submission form:

      "By checking this box you declare that you are not barred by law from sharing this photo."

      If they later get complaints to the contrary they can of course take the photo back down (after taking the proper time to investigate the complaint and ensure that it is legitimate). After all, how could they tell that the photo was posted illegally?

  2. How is this different ... by thephydes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    .... to car magazines paying a bounty for pix of yet to be released models?

  3. slashvertising by bjourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    Football Odds
  4. Gawker websites by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.