Dave Caolo

Brian X. Chen and Kim Zetter for Wired:

“[Brian J. Hogan] says he regrets not doing more to return the device to its owner.”

This is actually a key point. California Code – Section 485 speaks to a “reasonable and just” effort to track down the owner. What effort did Mr. Hogan make?

“A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone.”

Hogan’s friend, not Hogan himself, offered to call Apple Care. We don’t know if s/he made that call. Also, they obviously knew who it belonged to.

“He made a mistake,’ [Hogan's lawyer] Bornstein added. ‘He should have just immediately turned that phone in.’”

Plus, he shouldn’t have taken money for something he clearly knew wasn’t his, and Gawker shouldn’t have offered money for something that wasn’t Hogan’s.

Robert Powell:

The bottom line is the guy (who found Apple engineer Gray Powell’s iPhone 4G and sold it to Gizmodo) stole the phone. The guy’s a thief.

CAL. CIV. CODE § 2080.1 : California Code – Section 2080.1 — The phone was not turned over to the cops. That’s a civil liability.

CAL. CIV. CODE § 2080 : California Code – Section 2080 — The parties did not act in good faith or a depositary (taking the phone apart).

CAL. PEN. CODE § 485 : California Code – Section 485 — The question is what constitutes a “reasonable and just” effort to track down the owner. It seems plain that the participants knew without question that the device was an Apple prototype, and they already knew the guy’s name. Guilty of theft.

CAL. PEN. CODE § 496 : California Code – Section 496 — The property was obtained in a manner constituting theft, as above. The phone was both concealed and sold. Every person who either bought it or sold it knowing what it was is potentially facing one year in jail.

Now consider what I called Gizmodo’s “…flippant and disrespectful … handling of the entire ordeal,” and you see why so many people are turned off.

John Gruber:

“…publishing the name, photographs, and personal information of the Apple engineer who lost the phone is irrelevant to the story. It was the dick move to end all dick moves … There is no interest served by outing him other than taking sociopathic glee in making a public spectacle of someone who made a very serious but honest mistake.”

Nearly correct. Giz salted the wound John describes by pointing out that Powell lost the iPhone on his birthday. THAT was the dick move to end all dick moves.

Gizmodo accuses Trent Reznor of “…going all TUAW’ in his recent anti-App Store post.

I assume “Going all TUAW” means following an emotional, knee-jerk rant with rational thought and careful attention. Of course, I’m not mature enough to kill someone’s display during a presentation at CES, so what do I know?