Slashdot Mirror
Should Snatching an iPhone Be a Felony?
theodp writes "English comedian Russell Brand could be facing a felony conviction for snatching an iPhone from a would-be paparazzi and tossing it through a window. Singer/parolee Chris Brown also found himself in iPhone hot water after being charged with 'robbery by snatching' in a similar DIY-paparazzi-thwarting incident, which could be a misdemeanor or felony depending on the value placed on an iPhone. But in the world-of-crazy-pricing created by phone makers and wireless providers ($899 Nokia Windows Phone, anyone?), where the quoted price of an iPhone varies by a factor of 376 from the same company, should one really be charged with a felony for snatching an iPhone, especially when an iPad 2 can be had for $399 retail?"
I hate apple, but if anyone were to steal my electronics/car, etc, I would happlily see them stood up against a wall and shot.
This is no different than pick pocketing someone.
Usually stealing something directly from someone's person is a serious offense no matter how worthless it is.
Hell, if force is used it becomes robbery.
Nothing to see here, move along.
It's already a felony in basically every democratic city in the world to snatch whatever private property someone else owns, and tossing it away like that (out the window).
It's not yours, so you can't snatch it, it's that simple. Nothing complex about it.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Maybe. When I mean 'maybe' I mean maybe when I'm pissing off random thieves on the street by shoving my phone in their face repeatedly until I get a reaction.
Maybe then.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Why is this a question?
Might as well punch the paparazzi in the face...
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
See http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html . Perhaps the iPhone is worth $8 billion (I mean, you are technically stealing every song on the iPhone as well as the phone itself).
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
It's also destruction of data. Maybe this is akin to hacking a website and deleting the data? Not to mention the time and effort to recover the data, if at all possible.
1. Wear something copyrighted.
2. Sue the paparazzi for copyright infringement.
3. PROFIT!!!!
This is not about an iPhone being thrown around, it's about someone else's property being damaged in excess of $500 and that being a felony in Louisiana. Whoopdeedoo, big deal.
There is already too much crime. Civil liability should be enough. If it's unprovoked, simple battery might be in order. But felony?
Stop being so damn blood-thirsty. Breaking somebody's device because they shove it in your face should not ruin lives and occupations.
you'll get shot
Only taking what people need to be productive should be a crime.
Russell Brand willingly does no useful work, therefore he needs nothing, therefore nothing can be his in law.
Of course, the paparazzo is doing no useful work either, so should he have any legal right to his iPhone?
The solution is not to waste state resources on either of them. Let them fight to the death or something.
Are the paparazzi carrying the accessories of that bundle? Individually bought the Purity HD headset is about 150-200$ and the Play360 speaker maybe 100-150$. Slantdot editing at it's finest.
Owning a iPhone should be considered a phelony.
The price of the phone is not what makes it valuable or its loss dangerous. That's like considering the price of the paper to determine the severity of the offense of the hold-up note to a bank teller.
As an Englishman, please please please America take this jerk lock him up in Cuba. In return we ^H^H I will happily take Katy, well after July who we will also lock up in restraints!!
if someone sticks something out at me at arms length. Are they not giving it to me?
So long as its just pushy type paparazzi involved. How about we just forget the whole thing.
Until it happens to someone who respects others space and privacy.. Tell the paparazzi to stfu.
Because i have no problem with people disrespecting and damaging their expensive toy while they were most likely trying to film someone who didnt want to be bothered. And if they were in range to have their iphone grabbed and tossed. They were bothering someone. Famous or not i don't care...
They are not public servants paid by everyones tax money. The public has no right to intrude on anyones life with a camera.
This brings to mind a current activist motion to defeat the US injustice system by demanding a speedy trial due under the Constitution and so creating a DDoS on the courts. If everybody so charged demanded their full rights, the courts must necessarily absolve most as they have not the time nor space to convict them.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I don't think government or civil funded agencies should be working for organizations, or associated with them. This is what the legal realities of our world today are all about. So many resources that could be used to better us all are paying to protect the interests of companies. It's great that the founding fathers separated church and state. They should have more clearly stated the intended separation of privately held company and state. I think if they had more clearly foreseen the world today they would certainly strengthen that principal. Not that they didn't try, but those safeties have been systematically circumvented. It is obviously destroying our world and is by far the largest contributor to the downfall of us as a species.... I'm hoping the next fish do better.
It should be classed more as a favor
In the style of the worst newspapers, the Daily Mail start with the result they want and steer all discourse towards it, even if it means twisting and lying along the path. They will just make it up if they need to do so, and there have been a lot of cases where this has happened!
People worked hard for many hours to buy their iPhone... to just dismiss this as a trivial offense is shocking to me.
It is just like taking an apple, so why the fuzz?
Yes. Even in this article they managed to make the first two sentences about immigration.
It actually belongs to mother America. Why pollute Cuba? Is it not enough that Iraq and Afghanistan are polluted?
"($899 Nokia Windows Phone, anyone?)"
That link goes directly to a bundle deal which includes a Nokia Lumia 800 AND a pair of Nokia Purity HD stereo headphones by Monster AND a Nokia Play 360 wireless Bluetooth speaker AND a Nokia Luna Bluetooth headset. The Lumia 800 can be expected to retail for €500 or so when released in the US.
It's about the chance to have a talentless shock jock locked up, and in that I approve.
As the worst newspaper around, the Daily Mail start with the result they want and steer all discourse towards it, even if it means twisting and lying along the path. They will just make it up if they need to do so, and there have been a lot of cases where this has happened!
FTFY
The interesting thing here is that the iPhone may have enough value to make this a felony, but his privacy has no value at all. Paparazzi can follow and harass him all they like and he can do nothing about it. Now you might not have sympathy for celebs, but they do the same thing to mothers of murder victims and others. A (British) paparazzi only today followed the mother of one of the dead Belgium schoolchildren (coach crash in Switzerland) to get 'sad mother' shot.
IMHO, throwing a paparazzi camera out of a window should have no more value than the damage to the phone. It was NOT THEFT, he can go get his phone, it was not assault, he did not hit the Paparazzi. It was not a mugging, no threat of violence was used. I don't even rank this the same as taking a normal persons phone and throwing it out the window because the Paparazzi was the person who came into close proximity and shoved the camea phone in his face.
He didn't go seek out the Paparazzi, the reason they're in conflict is entirely the Paparazzi actions.
So it's a misdemeanor since it's paparazzi, or possibly a 'jolley jape'.
then vote with your wallet, i have never owned an iphone or any other brand of smartphone for exactly that reason, i refuse to spend as much on a cellphone as i would a desktop or laptop computer, i opted to buy a cheap Tracfone for for around 29 bucks and buy a pre-paid card to program it with by three months at a time, that way if my phone gets lost or stolen or broken i have not lost much on it
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Apparently felony was abolished in the Criminal Law Act 1967 in England and Wales "which made all felonies (except treason) misdemeanours". Arrestable offences were abolished in 2006.
This guy is generally despised in the UK. In fact when he was caught making his obscene calls and the BBC was fined by Ofcom because of it he said "All I ever wanted to do was make people laugh".
Well Russell, start when you're ready.
Maybe it should be considered an act of sacrilege.
From a UK perspective I think it's definitely desirable to have him in jail over there. Just keep him. If he threatens to be released, find something else.
(no, I don't like him. Why? Can you tell?)
$399? The iPad2 is priced at $1055.28 for the cheap non-3G one over here! *sits in a corner and grumbles about rich countries getting the lowest prices*
More than the money value of the phone, a phone is a communication device. For that reason alone it should be a felony to snatch any phone.
sHOULD IpHONING A sNATCH bE A fELONY?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Sean Penn pulled this off once without theft. He just punched the asshole in his fucking face. Russell Brand is a far cry from that... however, the real question, all hatred of Apple aside, did Brand take something that did not belong to him? Did he make it impossible for the owner easily to retrieve it? Did he do so with malicious intent?
The question of it being an iPhony or iFad or whatever is irrelevant. It is not up to the thief, or the community at large to determine whether or not it should be a crime because we think whatever it was either is or is not worth as much as the unsubsidized price because of prejudice and bigotry over partisanship or brand loyalty, etc.
If Brand had grabbed a gold chain from around a guys neck with a big gold medallion on it, and thrown it out the window, and the item cost over a thousand dollars, it doesn't matter if we think it was gaudy or ugly or overpriced, unless the item is a wrist watch, say, and the complainant is claiming it cost a thousand bucks and it really only costs a hundred, and he just got ripped off buying it because he's an idiot who doesn't know how to comparison shop... that's another thing altogether.
The culture of sticking cameras in people's faces we've devolved into is annoying and disgusting, but at the end of the day, someone pointing a device that records the patterns of photons bouncing off a person, or being emitted by a person, IN PUBLIC is not different really, from looking at someone in public, so unless the camera or camera-bearing device had been placed somewhere we would not think it's okay for someone to position his eyeballs, (i.e., bending over to get a view up a girl's skirt, for example) the response of grabbing and throwing it is not appropriate.
If the camera wielding person HAD physically interfered with Brand's person, harassed him, etc., then the appropriate response would be to respond to the person, not to take his personal (or professional) property and chuck it out the window. He maybe might should have done what Penn did, and respond proportionally to the individual, at least I would have thought it was funny.
So in any case, if it's a crime of whatever variety, fine. Book 'im, boys.
Obviously, stopping a paparazzi is in public interest. Freeing somebody from an iPhone clearly is too. So IMO, this should result in a public commendation, and if needed in a psych-eval for the former iPhone owner to determine whether there is any residual damage that could mandate putting them into a closed psychiatric facility to protect the public.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The problem with this suggestion of a felony conviction over questionable MSRP pricing structures is where do you draw the line? What happens next month when someone snatches a Coach purse, or some other obscenely overpriced piece of shit that we Americans seem to love to waste money on?
Start questioning one overpriced product, and it tends to lead you down a very dark path that NO retailer or manufacturer wants people screwing with.
"Which is worse - tossing the phone of a paparazzi? Or stealing a sandwich from a homeless guy? It appears that US law may consider damaging a wealthy man's toy to be worthy of a greater punishment than depriving a poor man of his food for a day."
DEPRIVING A POOR MAN OF HIS FOOD FOR A DAY.
Oh, the horrors! Because people are always stealing food from homeless people, aren't they?
You fucking idiot.
The problem here is that Crashdot is full of idiots who worship scum like Russell Brand, JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE 'FAMOUS'.
Chris Rock and Russell Brand are both arrogant assholes, and the same laws apply to them as to everybody else. If they are allowed to get away with this, then presumably I can go up to every single person I see with a phone in their hand, steal it from them (by grabbing it out of their hand) and then throw it down the street, right? And I can do that over and over and over again, twenty times a day, without being charged, right?
Stealing an item of personal property is larceny. Add the use of force or fear and it's robbery. Robbery is always a felony because of the inherent risk that someone could be injured or killed. That's why Jerry Dewayne Williams is serving 25-to-life for stealing a slice of pizza.
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Give him the chair. The world won't mourn.
That seems equivalent to stealing an iPhone, a device that has all your digital data, financial information, communications, essential life info requires for personal and professional survival.
Those who are well known only for being well known should get jobs or stop whining. Of course its a felony to deliberately destroy valuable property for no apparent reason. Lock him up! And put it on live video streaminng for the fanboys, if such he has, lol
I suppose this topic got here as a subset of the equally bizarre concept that there is, or should be, such a thing as privacy, whether in practical or legal terms I have never been able to tell, as the concept is a fantasy. In the traditional village, therecwas no such thing as privacy: everyone knew every single thing anyone else did or said, usually in real time, and pretty much knew what they thought as well. Humans evolved in and for that; gossip keeps us righteous, more ort less.
Guess what we are back to the future, again...
Avoid the theft/snatching charge.
Just punch the papparazi in the face and deal with the misdemeanor assault charge.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
He didn't steal the phone for any good reasons (ie to feed his family) he did it to be an ass. His largest crime though is going around calling himself a comedian when he clearly isn't one. Just do society a favour and castrate the ex-junkie.
It should be commended.
Perhaps even rewarded.
After all, every iphone destroyed helps us as a whole just a luttle bit
That's not how factors work.
It's not in your face, it's in my hand.
iPhone $400, data within $100,000, privacy breach $1,000,000. Definitely a felony.
"If you're not passionate about your operating system, you're married to the wrong one."
Russell Brand wouldn't have to worry about it if he hadn't STOLEN a pap's phone. (What he did with it later is irrelevant).
DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF. Don't like their camera? Sorry. Don't like their phone? Sorry. Don't like their iPad? (stupid, I know, but the OP mentioned iPads so I am bringing it up for completeness.)
I don't care if you're a Hollywood Celebrity, a faux Paris Hilton celeb, or just someone who's self important.
DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF.
Then you won't have to wonder if you committed a felony or misdemeanor by your UNLAWFUL ACT.
Wait... let me summarize. ACT LAWFULLY AND KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF. Don't try to claim your act of vandalism is "only a misdemeanor." It's really "only" poor manners and UNLAWFUL on your part.
Cheers and all that.
E
This guy is generally despised by the Daily Mail
FTFY
I never rated him much either but I ended up listening to him a few times when driving back down from London late at night and he was genuinely very funny. Not to everyone's taste, but presumably those same people howling for Brand's blood also choke on their All-Bran when they read the sensational tabloid reaction to Jimmy Carr's latest "outrage". What a bunch of wank.
The Daily Fail jumped on the story because the figure of fun, Andrew Sachs, was part of that great "British Institution" Fawlty Towers, which was so great they only made 12 episodes. Andrew Sachs' greatest contribution to British Comedy was putting on a "funny" Spanish accent and acting as a second-string clown to John Cleese. His grand-daughter was a burlesque dancer, a porn-star and a high-class escort/S&M dominatrix. Prank-calling him was in poor taste but I'd bet dollars to donuts that if they'd called up Laurence Fishburne and pointed out that his daughter is a porn-star I doubt the ultra-right-wing Mail would have even looked up from writing their bile about illegal immigrants to notice it.
If it's worthless, then maybe I can give you my address so you can mail me a free one.
can i run visual studio or Siemens Step 7 on an ipad?
You're gonna feel so damn foolish and naive when in less than two years, you CAN (easily) write a program every bit as fancy as anything you can produce on a PC, on a tablet or phone even.
Not if it's from a papperazzi.
I'm more concerned with how Apple has snatched the headline. I have no idea what brand of telephone Russell Crowe threw at the head of the concierge in NY in 2005, nor did I think its brand had something to do with the court ruling the phone was a weapon. This appears to be a case of product-placement inside of real crimes.
Gently reply
The paparazzi ought to be glad it was just his phone that got fucked up. He ought to be happy he didn't wake up in the middle of the night strapped to the bed, beaten repeatedly with a sock full of soap by a masked stranger warning him to stop interfering with people's lives.
LOL at him throwing the douchebag's phone through the window. Asshole deserved it
The poster did not factor in the monetary value of the data contained on the phone. Some of it could be valuable, or private information. If it is a targeted theft to get at the data rather than just "stealing the phone" then there may be situations where a felony is justified.
Geeks, you need to be more proud of the law, it is much more geeky than most of us think.
Why would you ever be proud of something which is specifically designed to enslave people (prison) and ruin their lives?
It's not yours, so you can't snatch it
I don't like people telling me what I can and cannot do. You meekly telling me I "can't" certainly has zero bearing on anything.
Become a paparazzi and stalk me. Find out how fast your iPhone gets shoved up your ass sideways.
I have rights too, you know.
What's the threshold for grand theft? I was under the impression it's $500 in most places.
So if it's an iPhone 4S, which costs over $600 to replace if you're not on contract, then yes, it should be a felony.
can i run visual studio or Siemens Step 7 on an ipad?
I don't think you could run either of those on a Windows phone ... or Windows tablet
If it's a Windows On ARM tablet, it'll be locked down as tight as a Windows phone. But if it's a Windows On Atom tablet, you can probably run Visual Studio just fine because Windows will see those as a PC with a pen.
or a Mac
Macs can run XCode. If you add a $200 copy of Windows, they can run Visual Studio.
or a Linux desktop
A Linux desktop can run plenty of Free IDEs. So can an Android tablet running AIDE. I guess this leaves iPad and Windows On ARM tablets as the only major tablets that can't be used for application development even when docked to a keyboard.
Paparazzi can follow and harass him all they like and he can do nothing about it.
Not true - he can decide not to be a celebrity. The victims of crime or accidents, who not only had no choice but are also suffering from the repercussions of the event are the ones who need the protection. However I think the most effective way to stop them is to stop buying their papers. We do not need governments to do this for us - we can, and should, do it ourselves by making such activity (at least in the case of victims) highly unprofitable. Afterall in a democracy the government should reflect the will of the people and if the will of the people is to read gutter journalism like this we should not expect governments to act until we show we are willing to stop reading such stories.
you CAN (easily) write a program every bit as fancy as anything you can produce on a PC, on a tablet or phone even.
Only if the tablet runs Android or some other operating system that allows unsigned or self-signed code. You can write a program on an iPad, but you can't test it because of how Apple's developer program works. You have to use something like Citrix or VNC to a PC to compile and run it, and if you're out of range of Wi-Fi and in the United States, a cellular data plan for doing that regularly can become expensive. I keep my netbook because I can code while taking the bus to and from work.
Citrix is seamless even over 3G
How many megabytes per hour does Citrix use?
There are other technologies like HTML 5
How does one write a barcode scanner application in HTML5? There isn't yet a widely supported API to (ask the user to) access a device's camera.
more computationally intensive ones can be coded server side
Not while the user has zero bars because moving vehicles don't get Wi-Fi and the user either has already exceeded his monthly 3G cap or is unwilling to pay for 3G in the first place. For hobby coding on the bus to and from work, a 10" laptop doesn't rely so heavily on a cellular data subscription.
There is English law (which also includes legal issues in Wales), Northern Irish law, and Scots law. No such thing as "UK law".
The Judicial system is where copyright mathematics was born. The prosecutors will go for the max and a felony.
And you can't just look at the hardware value, alone. The paparazzo probably had $8 billion worth of (infringing) content on it, as well.
Observe all appropriate initiation protocols [when playing with people]
Where are said initiation protocols reliably documented? Are the letters of Paul in the Bible any good?
Why would I want my democracy's rules to be determined by the same people who've proven they don't care about the rules?
Because perhaps they care more about the rules than some other people. Let me guess: you would have approved of taking away someone's right to vote for having smuggled slaves out of the South into Canada in pre-1860s United States.
Unless you're rich enough to write your own undemocratic laws
The following does not apply to phone theft or vandalism, but would you approve of taking away someone's right to vote for having violated an undemocratic law that was written by someone who was rich enough?
As just about any cash is property damage that exceeds $500. So the cops must do a felony arrest after one?
The prices offered for iPhones on the linked AT&T page may "vary by a factor of 376" but that's because some of the phone's value is embedded in the contractual commitments that come with it when offered at lower prices. You have two choices: use the "no commitment" price, or take the total value of the two-year contract and try to subtract the value of an equivalent plan with no handset. I doubt there is much difference at all.
...thinking this was going to have to do with the data access on the phone being essentially an issue of computer crime, and thus, a felony.
Our felony punishments are too strict. But, that said, otherwise, stealing a computer? Well, if using computers to break in and steal the data is a felony, then why the hell wouldn't physically taking the whole damn box be one as well (even if that box fits in your pocket)?
This guy is generally despised in the UK. In fact when he was caught making his obscene calls and the BBC was fined by Ofcom because of it he said "All I ever wanted to do was make people laugh".
Well Russell, start when you're ready.
Please don't post links to the Daily Mail website, you're not helping our colonial friends in any way by posting links to their bland, lying, untrue, overblown, one-sided shite.
We should point out that the Daily Mail is to good printed journalism as Fox News is to good television journalism. I wouldn't wipe my arse with torn up copies of the daily mail, the ink comes off the paper too easily.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
tossing someone else's iPhone?
someone else's
You're destroying (tell me the screen isn't cracking via toss) someone else's property.
Yeah, assuming you aren't a juvenile, you absolutely should lose your gun ownership, voting, and other rights for that. There's no fucking excuse.
"snatching" = stealing ( you aren't making a copy of it :) )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Paparazzi don't count as people so:
-should be able to exterminate them on site
-things can't own property so you can't steal a phone from a paparazzi
But anybody who charges me with a hand raised runs the risk of a broken arm. This nerd is not a pushover, and THAT is "stuff that matters."
..under this law. What legislator is going to stand up and ask for this $ limit to be raised? That only helps the boys sitting in the jail cell, and they don't vote...
The value of the contents could exceed the value of the device. If the only copy of a year's work is in there, it is worth a lot. If an encrypted copy of a database is in there, preventive measures can also be expensive.
In these cases it must not be a felony. It's an occupational risk the obnoxious DIY-paparazzi's suffer.
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Many places define value for purposes of theft as the highest amount possible determined by reasonable standards. In New Hampshire for example, the theft law defines "value" as:
Are you suggesting that because you don't like the manufacturer's pricing models, that we should just write a special exception into the laws for phones requiring some other standard be used?
This is not a situation like when the RIAA claims a mere copy of bits on a disk representing "music" and sold for $0.99 is actually worth $50,000. If someone steals someone's smart phone, the victim actually paid the $800 for that physical, tangible property, and will have to pay $400 again to replace it.
There are certainly problems with the felony laws: In many places, the threshold between misdemeanor and felony was defined decades ago and hasn't been updated for inflation. For example, it was set to $500 in New Hampshire sometime in the 1970s, and was only increased to $1,000 in 2010 (SB205, 2010), whereas $500 in 1971 is actually worth $2661.24 today (Inflation Calculator). But this doesn't mean we should be adding special exceptions into the laws for products people don't think are worth the purchase cost.
Liberty in your lifetime
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Should Snatching an iPhone Be a Felony? When celebs do it, hell yes. Screw 'em. Laws should reflect this. Why?
When Schwarzenegger signed an anti-paparazzi bill in 2010, it made it far easier for 'famous people' to sue media outlets that use photos that invade celebrities' privacy (particularly when vehicles are involved) in the state of California. Living in Los Angeles, I see celebs often enough to be quite jaded. Paparazzi annoy ME by getting in my way trying to snap those pictures for TMZ et al, but tough shit 'famous person', you're getting what you wished for. Having one's cake and eating it too, indeed.
I personally feel little sympathy for celebrities - their careers are often spent in and dependent upon being the center of attention, and cashing those multimillion dollar checks only further cements my opinion that they're also cashing in their personal lives, too. Period.
Essentially a nepotism-based employment opportunity where you're given the winning lottery ticket on a gold platter (with few real exceptions), being rich and famous takes a certain personality to handle that few have. Whether they're confusing their fame with wisdom or pushing their politics on the masses, these people need to be held far more accountable for their actions. Most were born on third base and confidently act like they hit a triple (as the saying goes).
(Irony: Brands' father was a professional photographer.)
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Damaging private property is against the law, period. If these assholes hate their job so much they should quit. If the photographer took Brand's phone from him, do you suppose nothing would happen? I doubt it.
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Some states do have laws making filming police illegal, but the courts have been throwing them out as being unconstitutional.
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It might be illegal to take a picture of a celebrity (or anyone else) by pointing your camera at their backyard, but as far as i can tell it is perfectly legal to take a picture of them in a public place. Selling the pictures without consent is a totally different issue.
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The 899 USD Windows Phone is a bundle, that contains the phone, high quality speakers and a bluetooth headset, in addition to headphones.
I'm not sure it's any different than the other things that are being made a felony. It's no worse than someone being labeled a sex offender for public urination. As for nullifying rights for convicted felons: If you can't trust them with a gun, then maybe they shouldn't be let out of prison in the first place.
I think you are kind of making the point for having this sort of thing as a felony. The crime rate for the UK & Europe is substantially higher than it is for the US. Incentives/dis-incentives do work, even for criminals.
Prison industrial complex? Put down the bong. It's about 2 things: Segregating criminals from society by locking them up and providing a disincentive to commit crimes.
This is not a case where deadly force should be used, but for those claiming it is vandalism rather than theft : Texas law permits deadly force for malicious vandalism at night. Ya'll be careful now.
I think the referenced case could be treated as assault, with the theft being an aggravating factor. Because of the extra violent part of the action, throwing the property through a window, I think the victim has a very strong case for saying that he had a reasonable apprehension of a threat of bodily harm, and that is exactly how this case should proceed, as a criminal accusation of aggravated assault. There's no reason a jury needs to know that it was an iPhone specifically or that the victim was a "paparazzi" whatever that is. He was a person with a legal right to be where he was when assaulted, period.
That is as may be, I am not familiar with UK law. The person I responded to said, "At least here in the UK," and then proceeded to give specific examples of definition from the law. They never delineated between the different areas of the UK, so I am unable to address what portion of the UK they were referring to. I was only able to address the definitions that they gave as being part of "UK law".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I think paparazzi should be illegal and people would be allowed to beat them up or destroy their cameras etc if it happened.
I'm sick and tired of people looking at the price tag of the phone at purchase time only, and ignoring any monthly fees and/or elevated prices for other services.
Forgetting some 350$ worth of accessories when bemoaning a 899$ price tag on a phone is just one exellent case point.
Some people use their smartphones for everything but only have weak security. Just like stealing a wallet. How much is that worth? Might as well be a wiretap too.
Take my stuff with violence = possible bullet
It seems like any other damages beyond that would be cover under tort law.
Why does the involving of an Iphone matter in the slightest?
References? Also note that there are different legal systems in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland so you'll probably want to be indicating which bit of the UK you are referring to.
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A few years ago I was on a commuter train in summer when an idiot having an argument with some other idiots pulled a pistol out of his belt and went waving it. I was behind and on his pistol side, so I grabbed the gun, twisted it up and away and threw it out through the upper vent window, which was open. Two others hit him, neither of them were who he was arguing with (they scooted away trough the people behind them). The nitwit squawked that the gun was a $900 Bernoulli, or something like that, and that it wasn't even loaded. I didn't even know if it was a real gun.
Was I guilty of theft? robbery? a felony? Were the two who hit the nitwit guilty of assault? Should I have been charged? Should they? None of us were, but the gun-waver was, with something. The police found the gun and the guy plead guilty, so we all got to just forget about it. I think this was right, and I don't think I would feel different if the guy had pulled a knife, or a stick, or if he had threatened me with a cell-fone. If I didn't want my picture taken I think it would be assault to take it, since my image is me. I would not take a fone away from someone waving it at someone else, but if the person they were threatening was objecting I don't think I would be wrong to put a hand in the way and tell the threatener to put it away..
For God's sake. We're talking about trying to make any transgression against an Apple Fanboi a felony, and the fanbois have drivel AAPL stock to the point that it's pricing in EPS of $44.
This insanity has got to stop.
First off, what has this got to do with an iPhone? Nothing.
Same would be true of any phone.
Second off, phones have never been cheaper. Five years ago, the most expensive phones were around $1200 (some HTC and some Nokia). I think you could even find some for $1400 -- ones with slideout keyboards like HTC Shift? And before that it was even more expensive.
Now we're looking at the most expensive phone in the world being $899. And Slashdot runs a story about increasing phone costs?
So should modding this post down.
Have gnu, will travel.
There is English law (which also includes legal issues in Wales), Northern Irish law, and Scots law. No such thing as "UK law".
Blame julesh, who said: "At least here in the UK, this would not be considered either theft or robbery." Ask your countryman to be more precise.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
He should have his lawyers delay the trial a few months until the iPhone 5 comes out, then the thing will be completely worthless.
I picked up one of his videos at a charity shop.
Boy was I mugged.
35 pence and no real way to get my money back!
This was the creep that phoned up Manuel and told him he'd shagged his grand-daughter.
I'm pleased he doesn't like phones much though.
Maybe he's learned?
is that celebrities do not like hearing that the same rules that apply to everyone else applies to them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Depriving someone of their phone is a crime. (Mayhap they were being annoying with it- people are annoying with their cars every fucking day, and I don't get to smash those.)
So, what is the replacement cost of the phone, and what is the additional penalty to try to discourage others from smashing phones in the future?
Seems easy enough.
Yes. I mean, if it were any other phone, a misdemeanor would be enough, but if it's an iPhone, then definitely a felony.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Let's just make everything a felony! That'll stop crime, for sure.
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... buying one should be.
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Because, well all know, making something a felony always results in reducing the incidents of that behavior !
It also distracts from the complex and disturbing privacy issues that nobody really wants to get into, because it steps on too many government and industry-impacted toes...
How much of a right do people have to hound and harass other people, and is your right to pester someone greater than their right to the level of privacy that you enjoy ?
But I guess if you grab the photographer's camera, which can cost thousands of dollars, it's OK to throw that way and not be a felony!
Once you factor in the required contract and data plan, you're talking thousands of dollars.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
So the law should be based upon what you have personal sympathies for? I take it you don't have a problem with that? You don't see how that could go wrong?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
you still need a pc to have backups.
Even with iCloud?
It wasn't persecution when Hitler and his mates were happily shovelling Jews into the ovens by the freight-car load, either... To the German government in power at the time.
Sometimes, believe it or not, when a government makes a decree, that decree fails to be the truth.
Who really cares what the value of the goods which were taken amount to? It should make no difference. A thief is a dispicable creature, regardless of what he/she steals or what it's value is determined to be - or whether the government which holds jurisdiction considers it to be "theft" or not.
Hang a thief. He or she will never do so again. Hang them all, whether they stole a jet full of gold or one tarnished penny. It's not the value - or lack of value - of what they stole, it's the fact that they did so in the first place.
Completely remove "value" from the situation and hang the thief. Leave him/her dangling on the end of the rope in a public place until the crows have had their fill. I expect that incidences of theft would drop even faster than the population of thieves that produce the theft - but even if it does not, it will slowly and surely give all mankind the gift of there being less thieves in the world.
There is a legal term "Mens Rea" or in English, "Guilty Mind". This is a general principle in law that the court must prove that whatever you did was done with intent or at least with a degree of criminal negligence (e.g., no-one intends to have a car crash by driving negligently). I don't know if Brand or Brown's actions qualify as felony but deliberate destruction of someone else's property fits the bill of Mens Rea. There is however the issue of provocation. Everyone has their own thresholds and I suspect if I was subject to the same chronic provocation that some public figures receive I would be sorely tempted to grab the implement of torment and shove it into a part of the tormentors anatomy where the sun don't shine. Fortunately I'm not a public figure (and I don't have much sympathy for Russel Brand)...
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So the law should be based upon what you have personal sympathies for? I take it you don't have a problem with that? You don't see how that could go wrong?
Laws should be blindly enforced, regardless of how much $$ you have access to or how famous your face is. I don't care how much a celebrity whines that their personal life is being violated as long as the same so-called violation could be legally directed towards a non-celebrity. I'm certainly not claiming to base a law on my personal opinions. It's simple: Do not give celebrities any more special treatments (esp. legal authority) over their already royalty-level treatment they get now, but that's exactly what the 2010 CA anti-paparazzi law did that was signed into law by someone who was himself a major celebrity.
This thread is off-topic ever so slightly, but does anyone really think these 'rich and famous' should be legally treated 'better' than the rest of us? But, that's a flaw in our (USA's) legal system, isn't it. Money does buy happiness...er...powerful lawyers.