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iPhone 4 Prototype Finder Gets Probation
think_nix writes "Brian Hogan, who found an iPhone 4 prototype last year which was sold to Gizmodo for $5,000, has been sentenced to one year of probation, 40 hours of community service, and a $250 fine. The District Attorney's office was asking for jailtime."
I found this in a Mexican bar.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
In China, these are called hero's of the people.
The right thing to do with something that isn't yours is not to pick it up and sell it. Duh. He will learn a lesson from this.
If you find a cell phone that doesn't belong to you in a bar and you turn it in to the bar owner, or you turn it into the police, or you turn it into a carrier store that the phone came from you are a finder.
If you find cell phone that doesn't belong to you and you sell it you are a thief.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/worker_commits_suicide_after_iphone_prototype_goes_missing_reports.html
He may of been killed and they made it look like a suicide.
I think that if you look it up, you will find that F. Keepers v. L. Weepers is not, in fact, a Supreme Court case, and the law in the real world is slightly more sophisticated on this matter than a handful of ten year old children would have you believe.
Yes the DA wants jailtime but I don't see that will do much good. I think at worst this was an E felony. Besides the CA jails are already overcrowded. Putting someone in jail for their first offense (as far as I know) when they are going to release them in 1/3 of their time anyways would not have served much purpose. I hope that the $250 didn't include forfeiture of $5000 that he got.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
For buying and destroying goods that were obviously not the property of the person selling them?
And you have evidence of this? In the same vein, how do we know you didn't rape and murder a young girl in 1990? I'm not saying you did but I find it interesting that you never denied it either. I'm just asking questions, that's all.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I did a writeup on this and submitted it:
http://slashdot.org/submission/1042991/blood-iphone
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So if someone finds my lost phone and doesn't return it, I can send him to jail. Good to know.
By my calculations, after the fine, he still has $4,750 profit.
www.awkwardengineer.com
it is not a crime if it was left there on purpose, to be discovered by some tech junky.
come on this has now happened twice, large company's have the money for advertising, they don't need to play stupid games with the media/police
The whole thing seems a bit one sided. Given that Gizmodo knowingly paid for stolen goods, where is their equivalent fine, community service and probation?
Seems like *knowingly* selling stolen items could turn into a sh^Htstorm of legal charges very easily. Especially if you can prove intent; and it wouldn't be too hard to prove with a $5k pricetag.
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If you are a gigantic corporation that doesn't give two shits about anyone who doesn't invest in your corporation and you entrust a prototype of a forthcoming product to a nincompoop lackey who loses it in a fucking BAR, you bring the full force of your influence over the local police department right down on the head of the stupid sonofabitch who finds said prototype. High profile embarrassments demand ACTION! NOW! HARDER! GET HIM!
His crime was not having enough money to "donate" to the right people to get off.
But seriously I agree with you, worst case I could see is being fined for the money he earned as a result of the sale.
As I recall the phone was disguised to looks like a 3GS so he did not even know at first that it was a prototype.
He should have just returned the phone back to Apple, I'm sure a reward would have been in order.
What crime was committed? He found some prototype in a bar and sold it to some news website. What crime was committed, exactly? The guy didn't sign an NDA or anything.
Theft? Selling stolen property? If you lost your phone and the person who found it decided to sell it instead of return it to you, would it be a crime then? Or does it only become okay when it happens to a company you dislike?
In the post-9/11 world you should assume it's a terrorist plot of some kind. Call Homeland Security immediately. They will cordon off the park, blow up the wallet, set up check points, and do body scans on everybody going in or out of the park.
If you spot a lost cell phone, ignore it. Don't touch it, don't look at it, don't ponder it, and above all, don't be the one who calls attention to it. Just keep moving. In today's environment of runaway government, chances are high you will be punished for trying to do right, rather than rewarded as one should be.
I'm not just talking about lost cell phones, of course. Unless it is a life-or-death situation, or somebody is likely to get hurt, the smart policy is to stay the hell out of any situation that is likely to involve government.
Remember that (1) the police are in the business of convicting people, not praising altruism, and (2) we live in the country with the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. Clearly, the US government's objective with the legal system is not justice -- and therefore it is prudent to regard the workhorses of that legal system (the police) as liabilities, not assets.
A man walks into a bar in Cupertino, has a drink, and gets up to leave.
On leaving the bartender notices that he has left his iPhone on the table.
Bartender: "Charlie, you left your iPhone again."
Customer: "sorry Phil, but it's cheaper than buying commercials."
Bartender: "Maybe, but my customers customers keep ending up in jail."
What crime was committed? He found some prototype in a bar and sold it to some news website. What crime was committed, exactly? The guy didn't sign an NDA or anything.
It would be like finding a $100 bill on the sidewalk and being convicted of theft because you didn't turn it in to the police. Who knows? Maybe that is a misdemeanor.
Sure, it wasn't the most ethical thing to do. An ethical person presumably would have turned the device in to its presumed owner, if there were any ownership markings on it.
The whole thing is kind of sleazy and it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth about Apple. Come on, you're already a rich corporation; how much could this guy have possibly hurt you? Did it stop even one person from buying one of your products?
Correction, it would be like finding a $5000 bill (or its equivalent of 100's) and keeping it instead of notifying the local police, which in the US is *not at all different with stealing $5000 (or an iphone) out of someones wallet/purse and having no intent of giving it back*. You can understand that stealing $5000 from someone would meet with severe consequences, can't you?
newb
Quick summary timeline...
Dude sees an old MacBook Pro on Craigslist listed by Seller as broken.
Dude buys it thinking maybe he can fix it.
Dude does indeed fix it, requiring reflowing of parts, adding parts (ram, HDD, etc.), chronicles it at Anandech, noting that it seems to be no ordinary MBP.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2165252&highlight=macbook+antenna - Prototype Macbook Pro with 3G: In my shop now!
Dude then sells it on Craigslist himself as he has no use for it and doesn't yet realize its uniqueness.
Buyer takes it to an Apple Store for some service, Apple Store Genius bar says "This is not an Apple product." on account of weird things in there.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/30/apple-genius-bar-didnt-recognize-macbook-pro-3g-prototype-apple-now-wants-it-back/ - Apple Genius Bar Didn't Recognize MacBook Pro 3G Prototype
Buyer sues Dude, wins (in part based on Apple Store findings), Dude is out moneys.
Dude thinks 'wtf', though, and takes a closer look at the MacBook Pro, asking around on forums.
Dude learns that the red motherboard implies it's a prototype.
Weeks pass and Dude does what anybody who isn't a fanboy would do - puts it up for sale on e-bay.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20092180-248/3g-equipped-macbook-prototype-pops-up-on-ebay/ - 3G-equipped MacBook prototype pops up on eBay
e-bay bids go up to $70k, listing is pulled due to request from Apple.
Dude then hears nothing, sits around waiting for some manner of official explanation for days on end.
CNet, however, now wants to know what happened, so arrange an interview, in which they of course also call Apple.
Apple suddenly takes very keen notice.
http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20099494&cid=null&bcid=&bid=-248 - Apple wants its 3G MacBook prototype back
Dude gets call - Apple wants their hardware back and they can have somebody stop by Dude's private residence that evening.
Dude says 'I think not, my lawyer will be in touch'.
Lawyer says Apple have no case.
Lawyer and Apple chit chat.
Lawyer says having no case matters shit all when you're Apple, so give up or incur huge costs.
Apple thus sends over a PI to pick up Prototype MBP.
Dude hands over the MBP.
Dude then sits around again wondering wtf just happened while waiting to see if he gets compensated in any way at all.
Apple does nothing.
Dude then petitions to Apple to get his shit back.
Apple says nothing, but does send an unmarked FedEx box with parts back.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20117512-248/prototype-3g-macbook-buyer-gets-parts-back - Prototype 3G MacBook buyer gets parts back
Dude now left with little option but either go "oh well", or sue the original Seller for incurred costs. Seller however says he received the MBP in earnest.
It would have been nice of Apple if they had arranged an exchange for a shiny new MBP and cover Dude's costs, as there's no reason to believe that this prototype was stolen and - as of the latest reports - Apple never filed it as such either.
The 'best' part? Being on IRC, watching a guy go from not being a fanboy but certainly an admirer of Apple, to being completely disenchanted.
Once he remove the outside case he realized it was not a 3GS. But he shopped it around as a prototype. Even if it was a 3GS, he had no right to sell it. By law, he had to make an effort to return it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
He sold a phone that was not his. Even if he "found" it in the bar instead of actively stealing it from its owner (say, by pick pocketing or grabbing it from the table while the guy was looking the other way), the law in CA is very specific on what you can do with that item once you have it - if you found it you must inform the police, and then a period of time then passes after which you can claim it as your own if the rightful owner does not come forward. This supposes that you do not know who the owner is, but given that they clearly did (all his personal details *were on the phone*), as well as realising enough that it was an Apple prototype (hence selling it for $5000 to gizmodo)...
Yeah, pretty cut and dried case for the PD there.
So, even if he found it abandoned (and let's face it, we're being generous on this point, but so be it - we don;t know for sure one way or the other), the published facts of what he (and gizmodo) did next once he was in possession of the phone by their own admission are contrary to the law in California.
But you know it's not yours.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Lets say I find a laptop. The laptop has standard laptop security and I have no way of identifying ownership. Even going to the OEM and asking them "who purchased this laptop?" would be inconclusive. I personally have purchased several hundred systems for resale to my customers. I post on CraigsList that I found a laptop. "Call me to claim this laptop I found. I expect a $5000 reward." You really want your data so you contact me immediately and agree to the reward/finders fee. You show up and can't really produce anything that says this is your laptop but you are really happy someone found it and you don't mind paying the finders fee to get it back. I have no way to prove otherwise and it really must be yours if you are willing to pay $5000 for it.I get paid, you take home your laptop. We are both happy.
Now replace the word "laptop" with "mysterious prototype cell phone". There is no way to prove the cell is or is not yours. What would I get charged with? If the guy we are discussing would have called someone from Gizmodo and said "hey did one of your guys lose a prototype iphone 4 at such and such a bar? If so, Id like to return it for a $5000 finders fee" we wouldnt be having this discussion. We would only be talking about Gizmodo fraudulently receiving stolen goods.
When playground rules are no longer followed.. .well it's pure anarchy
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/485.html
IANAL, but it's spelled out pretty clearly in black and white. He's lucky he didn't get jail time.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Well, he clearly did - since he sold it for $5000.
It doesn't matter though, even if he found it rather than stole it, the law in CA is clear about what you must do. He did none of the things specified, and instead sold it on to a third party by his own admission. Law broken, regardless of how he came by the phone in the first place.
It's not legal to find things in America? The article doesn't say what law he violated. I never would have thought the dude did anything illegal at all....
According to this article,
Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be--but "appropriates such property to his own use"--is guilty of theft. In addition, a second state law says any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.
That's fine, but no way would he be guilty under that statute. Nothing described so far binds him invariably to the conclusion that the phone was property of Apple. Lost phones don't automatically revert ownership to the company that originally sold them.
But, according to that article, precedent follows from a ruling where Possession of stolen property, accompanied by an unsatisfactory explanation of the possession or by suspicious circumstances, will justify an inference that the property was received with knowledge it had been stolen.
Ok. So having something that you know you did not have before, qualifies as theft, because knowing you did not have the thing and now you do have it, is tantamount to knowledge you have stolen it? Yeah, right! That seems just wrong. I can see that extending to countless cases it should not otherwise apply... I suppose the only thing preventing a slippery slope is the whim of the prosecutor/judge. does anyone know if California is the only state that has such bizarre property law? Are there more elucidating precedents I can read? Cause it's early in the morning and having trouble understanding how Hogan did anything wrong.
And he did, remember?
He contacted Apple several times and they disavowed all knowledge of it. Even if he contacted the wrong people there, how much due diligence should one expect?
Selling stolen goods. If it was YOUR phone i'm sure you'd be pissed.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I thought someone wrote a Finder for iOS.
How about you be more careful with your $5000 and not dropping it where anybody can just pick it up?
Now if someone pulled out a gun and made you hand over the $5000, that is a crime, bring out the police and the criminal justice system.
The only reason we're talking about this is because it's an iPhone and Steve got his pickle in a twist that someone saw his secret and ruined his big reveal at MacWorld. A billionaire's tantrum, more or less.
Dude should have contacted Apple as soon as he knew what he had, and told them what happened.
Dude chose to be a doofas and attempts to cash in.
Dude is an insignificant individual, bought something that wasn't legally for sale, and was clearly going to be crushed by the biggest and most secretive IT company on the planet.
Dude gets a lesson in life.
Apple don't miss his fanboyism or loss of his purchases.
Look - first off, the idiot screwed up. He never owned the device. Finders are NOT keepers, you deucebag. Be a man and try to find its owner instead of trying to profit.
However.
Realize that had another company done something like this, NO ONE GOES TO JAIL. Thomas Jefferson (who was kind of a big deal) showed quite a bit of distrust and disliking of them: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Abraham Lincoln too (specific to banks):
"As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
So as you're lobbing your scathing remarks at this stupid man, also realize that the company whose interests are being protected by this legal act would itself not be held to these same standards.
No he did not. He had his friend call Apple's tech support line once asking about prototypes and if there were any rewards. The tech support line had no information about it as their job is to assist customers with current products. As for due diligence, if he did not believe it was a prototype owned by Apple but a 3GS owned by someone else, that does not give him the right to sell it. Turning it to the bar or the police is the thing to do. Notice that he did not do either. My suspicion is that he only contacted the tech support line to confirm it was a prototype so he could sell it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You did not answer my question, how much due diligence should be expected?
It's a large corporation, its not like he can just call of the research team who was working on it. These corporations limit access to their internal people so he would have to go through the normal support channels.
If you drop your wallet and the only contact information in there is for your dry cleaners, then you have no standing to be mad when I am unable to return it to you.
why? Keep in mind that this was an old prototype from years ago. Not a prototype of a model not yet released (like the case in TFA). I have several prototype things, ebay is also full of them. There isn't a law saying you can't own or sell prototype things. There may have been such a stipulation in an agreement between Apple and the original Seller (or whoever they got it from) but that's something Dude couldn't possibly know.
He also couldn't have suspected the Seller of being a fence (and I'm not saying Seller was) as it wasn't being sold in a shady way or well below market price. In fact, Dude didn't know what it exactly was at the time of purchase.
No actually he repaired it, because that's what he does. He chronicles this, and it's reported on several mac-centric sites.
He doesn't really want to keep it, so he sells it on, himself, on Craigslist. He gets a few hundred dollars for it.
That could well have been the end of the story right there if not for the fact that the Buyer took the thing to an Apple Store who then stated that it's not an Apple product.
Yes, later on, once he learns it may have some value to collectors, he puts it up on e-bay. However he only expected to get maybe $2000 - never in a million years would he have thought it'd go up to $70k.
He wasn't trying to 'cash in'.
Matter of contention and certainly wouldn't have been known to him.
Except that he wasn't, not even after the ebay listing got pulled. Only once Apple heard from cnet did they start taking a closer look.
Those two are obvious, yes.
I've been shopping on craig's list for an iPhone recently and $250 is a killer price, especially for a 4G model. He got a great deal. True, he does have to do 40 hours of community service, but with the power of the iPhone and super fast 4G LTE network speeds, he can totally multitask, so it's really only like about 10 hours. I think I'll be on the lookout for misplaced prototypes now too. WAY cheaper than retail.
I found a nice car on the street. Looks like a never seen before Ferrari. Want to buy it? I'll take $5,000.
So, as I understand it from the summary (who RTFA, right?) its $4750 for a 40 hours job?
Not bad!... it's the only the one year probation that doesn't allow this to transform into a full time job.
He wrote: "Turning it to the bar or the police is the thing to do."
To which you answered:
So you are saying you are unable to find the bar you found it in (and that while you are actually there)? And you are also unable to find the police?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
How about some due diligence. He had the name of the engineer. Did he contact him? No. He knew where he found the phone. Did he talk to them or turn it into them? No. Did he turn into the police? No. Instead he had a friend call call a generic support line asking about a reward. Did he call himself? No. To me he wasn't interested in returning it but trying to profit from it.
Hypothetically if there were no ID in my wallet but the dry cleaning stub, turn it into the dry cleaner or the police. You don't get to keep it and sell it. But that wasn't the case here as he had the name of the engineer who lost it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So would you say it's OK to take things out of a house if its door happens to be unlocked? Because after all, the house owner should have been more careful and have locked the door, right?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The 'best' part? Being on IRC, watching a guy go from not being a fanboy but certainly an admirer of Apple, to being completely disenchanted.
The "best part'? Reading another biased story.
In California (at least), if you mistakenly buy stolen property, you can expect to get it confiscated - this happened to a co-worker of mine.
Actually I'm a time-traveling dinosaur and yes I was on the Grassy Knoll. I'll let you connect the dots. As everyone knows, we dinosaurs hate balls.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The intrinsic value of the phone was in it's monetary. The value lies in the newsworthiness.
The circumstance is that Apple losses such devices much more often than I would deem "normal".
I myself would probably not have touched the phone. Most people would have remained honest. But that's beside he point.
The point is that it would be very possible that Apple, knowingly that a similar thing would happen, "planted" the device and that the convicted was just the idiot of the moment.
In most law systems providing the opportunity in itself is punishable. Did the DA sufficiently consider this possibility?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Why is it that people who are found guilty of taking money or profiting off criminal actions rarely have to give back the money taken... or fined appropriately so that they make no profit on the transaction?
The guy took $5,000 for property that wasn't his. He is found guilt of that. His fine? $250.
Why not have him pay a $5,000 fine?!
How about you be more careful with your $5000 and not dropping it where anybody can just pick it up?
Now if someone pulled out a gun and made you hand over the $5000, that is a crime, bring out the police and the criminal justice system.
The only reason we're talking about this is because it's an iPhone and Steve got his pickle in a twist that someone saw his secret and ruined his big reveal at MacWorld. A billionaire's tantrum, more or less.
Care is not at issue; there is simply no such thing as "finders keepers" in any nation observing modern property laws. This guy was punished like the thief he was, end of story. If you had "lost" a $5000 phone that someone found and immediately hocked instead of returning it, would you really think to yourself "oh well it was his to sell" and just move on with your life?
You are trying to say if he had turned it over to the police he would have been jailed?
Huh?
Or you just wanted to make a sensationalist post...?
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I'm sorry, that doesn't parse.
Did you mean, "He may have been killed..."?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
No, you don't pay the girl to have sex with you. You pay her to star in the porno you are making and then it is perfectly legal. Or you just give her some nice gifts and call it 'dating.'
What evidence was there that it was stolen? Apple never reported it as such.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
This prosecutor sounds more like he was trying to enforce Apple Justice than Real Justice. I'd like to see an investigation of his bank accounts for any recent large deposits.
Note to Apple: If you want to keep your secrets, keep them on your campus and don't let them out into the Real World.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Selling a found item without making an effort to return the property to the owner makes you a thief.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
Would it be illegal if I got my time-machine working again (spares are really hard to find for these things), went a month into the future (okay, 2 months to avoid the crowds), legally bought an iPhone 4S, brought it back, and sold it now for a huge markup (to pay for those spares)?
Or a year ahead for an iPhone 5?
Or would a better use of it be to see what people are using now, go back 5 years to patent it myself, and become a Super Patent Troll? Has anyone checked out these other patent trolls for illegal time machines lately?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It's simple statistics. Foxconn has over a million employees. The suicide rate in China is 27.8 people per 100,000 people.
9 months is light for shooting and robbery yes, but this guy got no jail time. Both deserved stiffer sentences. Finding lost property worth 5 thousand dollars isn't like finding somebody's gymbag complete with sweaty jock strap and sneakers. In all reality though taking either one is wrong. If it's not yours why in hell would you take it? Seriously the lack of morality today is insane, no wonder we have lying crooks for leaders in government. It's a representative government, when you look at the leaders you see the people. Out for number one and screw everybody else.
It's not really theft.
Actually it's pretty easy to argue that it is theft. It was not his, he knew it was not his, he intended to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently, it had value, he moved it physically thereby taking possession of it, and it was taken without consent. I believe the proper term is larceny. By fulfilling all those criteria, he committed theft.
Obviously it is up to the courts to decide whether or not it is theft and what the punishment should be (if any) if it is determined to be theft. It sounds like in this case the court determined it to be theft but considered the offense to be rather minor in nature. Sounds roughly appropriate to me.
Maritime law applies and any distressed vessel and cargo falls under salvage law. Or fabricate a "bill of sale" in earnest, you shouldn't need much to excuse yourself of any wrong doing. What if he said he thought the phone was owned by Gizmodo and called to them to return it and they offered a reward to him in return for the phone. This is totally plausible since they could be phone testers for many prototype phones. And having Steve Jobs submit a proof of ownership is not extortion, it is more like covering your ass, especially when there is a law that says "finding lost property is equivalent to theft". Why would I give something I found to someone unless the are the rightful owner. Once they prove they are rightful owner, I can tell them where they can find their lost property. ;) Ha! no law against that you fuckin' legislative dickheads!
AFIK, there is no expectation in statutory or common law that requires an establishment to retain abandoned items.
As I recall it, in California law indeed nobody is obligated to retain lost property or do anything to restore it to the owner—but the law does spell out obligations that you assume if you take the lost property. In every case you can always turn the item over to the police to rid yourself of any obligation. Also, the only way you're allowed to claim somebody else's lost property is to go through a process that involves turning it in to the police for them to hold for a specified time period before surrendering it to the finder.
There's even more detail than this in California law, for things such as lost perishable goods (you can sell them and give the proceeds to the owner) and recovery of the finder's reasonable costs (e.g., if you lose your horse and I find it, choose to house it and feed it for a week until you're reunited).
Are you adequate?
The crime was theft. Under California Penal Code. This is what he was sentenced for. Do you think that judges routinely hand out sentences for the monstrous crime of "being a big poopy head"?
He found some prototype in a bar. It was not his. By taking possession of it, he took on custodial obligations for that phone, which include returning the phone to its rightful owner, or turning it in to the police, so that the police may find the rightful owner. Those are your only two options as a finder of lost items over a certain dollar value under the law. You either return it to the owner, or turn it in to the police and tell them that you couldn't find the rightful owner. If you try to find the owner, and you are unable to, your ONLY OTHER LEGAL OPTION is to turn the phone over to the police. You don't get to hold it, take 3 days to half-assedly search for the owner, and then say "Wow, it's mine!" If you do anything but reuinte the item with its owner, or turn it over to the police, this is considered theft.
If you take an item that is, in the eyes of the law, stolen, and attempt to sell it to another person, then you are selling stolen goods, which simply compounds the crime you've committed.
This has nothing to do with "Apple making its own laws" - these laws have been on the books in California for YEARS. The phone was obviously valuable. The guy who found it did not perform the duties required of a custodial caretaker under the law, and thus went from custodian to thief. When they tracked him down, they charged him with theft, and now he gets slapped on the wrist for it. Sounds like the legal system is working exactly as intended.
Assuming the prototype was in fact stolen he is not legally entitled to it.
I don't see how the lawyer could say they have "no case."
Care is not at issue; there is simply no such thing as "finders keepers" in any nation observing modern property laws. This guy was punished like the thief he was, end of story. If you had "lost" a $5000 phone that someone found and immediately hocked instead of returning it, would you really think to yourself "oh well it was his to sell" and just move on with your life?
Well, one, I will probably never own a $5000 phone, and if I could afford one I could afford to replace it.
In all honesty, yes, if through my stupidity I lost my $50000 phone I would not be shocked or surprised if someone else took it. This, btw, is why there are password locks to keep people out of your phone, remote wipe and insurance.
Let me ask you a question. With the limited and dwindling funds that state and federal government has at its disposal, would you rather they spend their time tracking and prosecuting violent offenders or tossing mad-dog phone picker uppers in prison?
Apple keeps doing this! Either they are the biggest bunch of incompetent fuck wads, or "losing" shit is just a marketing ploy. That some poor folks lose money and/or end up with criminal records because of it, the folks at Apple couldn't give a shit.
Fuck Apple. Buying Apple products supports this B.S.
I was wondering. In a scenario where I find an iDevice prototype, what if I handed it to Gizmodo for a couple of hours to do a review with, without charging Gizmodo anything for it and then called the original owner and returned it. Would I still be likely to the convicted for a crime like the chap in this article?
How about "some", for starters. If I drop my wallet with only my dry cleaning receipt, but you know who I am and you know it's my wallet, you have an obligation to do more than just call the cleaners and ask whoever answers the phone there. Like, say, turning it into the police.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
Let's be honest...
ALL this was, was a typical example of the LAW SYSTEM being there for big companies.
We're the case reversed, and Apple found some small tech start-up's prototype. They would never face any penalty.
It's akin to SONY suing thousands for copyright theft, then stealing someone's software to create a CD with anti-theft protections.
Wait...it's okay for SONY to violate copyright. Oh, let's talk about penalties. Since SONY put that on thousands of CDs. Each being a $150,000 fine. They should not pay the programmer several hundred million dollars.
Oh, wait...
Sorry silly rabbit, IP Laws are only for BIG FIRMS.
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And if that makes me a troll. Than I am darn proud to be a 900 lb fuzzy pink bunny troll. :P
With the limited and dwindling funds that state and federal government has at its disposal, would you rather they spend their time tracking and prosecuting violent offenders or tossing mad-dog phone picker uppers in prison?
So, what part of "iPhone 4 Prototype Finder Gets Probation" made you think he spent time in prison? RTFT much?