Don't Fuck with Apple - Not even if you're Gizmodo?



The COO/"legal representative"'s letter to the police is actually horribly written (from a legal standpoint). I really hope they find an actual lawyer.
 
It seems that the case is justified because he paid for "stolen property"?

But didn't the guy that found (read: not stole) it try to give it back to Apple before he sold it to Gizmodo? And he got brushed off with a case number and nothing else. And then Gizmodo ended up giving it back after they posted the pictures.

So what about any of that was stolen? Sure, Gizmodo profited from the traffic it received from the leak but as far as anything being "stolen"...I have my doubts.

My point being: where was the theft here?

That, and what was the point in confiscating computer equipment? The iPhone was already back in Apple's hands and has been for weeks.

This whole thing reeks.
 
We haven't seen the affidavit to the search warrant, and perhaps there is a lot more to this story than what has been published.

But from what has been reported, I'm putting my money on Gizmodo, although I question why they're only 'fighting' back on their website. Sure - great publicity for them.

They should have been in court today to challenge the seizure and/or to get the property returned ASAP.

Making a forensic copy of a computer can be done very quickly, and those computers undoubtedly have personal, legal, and private information on them.
 
That, and what was the point in confiscating computer equipment? The iPhone was already back in Apple's hands and has been for weeks.

This whole thing reeks.

I'd say they're worried about the iphone's components being revealed.. since they stripped it down they may have a list of all the individual parts inside the phone such as the CPU, ram etc.
 
I'd steamroll all over some individual dumb enough to put his name on that too when potentially fucking with hundreds of millions of dollars of my revenue.
 
this is great publicity for the new iphone are you fucking kidding me. This is the greatest PR stunt in history
 
What's curious is that one of those high-tech companies providing training, personnel, and support to the task force is Apple Inc., the alleged victim in the Gizmodo case. According to this May 2009 story from the San Jose Business Journal,Apple is one of the 25 companies that sit on REACT's "steering committee." Which raises the question as to whether Apple, which was outraged enough about Gizmodo's $5,000 purchase of the lost iPhone for CEOSteve Jobs to reportedly call Gawker Media owner Nick Denton to demand its return, sicked its high-tech cops on Chen.


According to the San Jose Business Journal, other steering committee members include Cisco Systems,Microsoft, and Adobe. This isn't the first criminal investigation REACT has conducted in which a steering-committee member was a victim: In 2006, REACT broke up a counterfeiting ring that was selling pirated copies of Norton Antivirus, which is produced by steering-committee member Symantec. REACT has also launched piracy investigations in response to requests from Microsoft and Adobe.

Guerilla is going to love the protectionism in this one. Government law enforcement team that priority protects a few companies. Great.