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."

Comments

Is putting a bounty on someone's life illegal?

[erroneus]

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?

Re:Is putting a bounty on someone's life illegal?

[maxume]

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.

It's in the wording, I think....

[mark-t]

""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.

Re:It's in the wording, I think....

[Rich0]

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?

Re:It's in the wording, I think....

[mysidia]

I think they don't encourage, they advise.

If you read between the lines, it seems like they encourage doing the opposite of what they advise...

Apple, of course, has plenty of good lawyers like Michael Spillner, so we reiterate our advice "to stay within the bounds of the law." And also: use anonymous email addresses! We can't tell Apple who you are if we don't know who you are.

Re:You're an idiot.

[crumbz]

"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."

Ummm.... inducement to break an NDA violates a civil statute. Therefore by definition it is illegal. Thus the civil penalties. It is simply not a criminal act under the Calif. code cited.

How is this different ...

[thephydes]

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

Re:You're an idiot.

[gnasher719]

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.

The legal problem is not the NDA, but opening a trade secret to the public. Both doing it and inducing a person to do so is illegal under Californian law.

Re:You're an idiot.

[kjart]

Last time I checked, telling people about a company's product isn't illegal.

IANAL, but I can read Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Another significant development in U.S. law is the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. 1831–1839), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. The first, 18 U.S.C. 1831(a), criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. The second, 18 U.S.C. 1832, criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. (The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secrets

So, as an example, if Apple could argue that the information in question is a trade secret (and they have done so in the past) then divulging that information may very well be a crime.

PS: You should work on your reading comprehension before you go around calling people idiots.

Re:You're an idiot.

[icebike]

Its not illegal to take a picture of Steve Jobs stuck in traffic and deciding to fire up his iTablet to pass the time.

Nothing in the original offer (see 1st link in story) said that someone had to break in, or break a NDA or any such.

Opening a trade secret is also not against the law once the trade secret somehow leaves the private offices of the holder. You can't hire buglers, but you can hire long-lens photographers.

slashvertising

[bjourne]

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.

Public View

[SuperKendall]

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).

Gawker websites

[thetoadwarrior]

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.

Re:You're an idiot.

[Stuart Gibson]

Yes, Apple's campus is not Jerhico, buglers would have little effect.