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How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

techcrunch.com

21–29 of 29 posts

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#21
post #18

In case some weren't aware, Arrington is a Stanford Law School graduate and was previously was a lawyer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. http://www.crunchbase.com/person/michael-arrington

Well, sure, but he practiced as a corp/finance lawyer, not a criminal or IP attorney (which seem to be the relevant facets here). And in the OP he says, specifically, "I’m not going to go into the legal issues around this because I’m just not qualified."

That's true, but his opinion is probably worth more than some random guy at least in this respect

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#22

In case some weren't aware, Arrington is a Stanford Law School graduate and was previously was a lawyer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. http://www.crunchbase.com/person/michael-arrington

Hindsight is 20/20. Being a lawyer didn't help him to put any contracts in place before committing to the Crunchpad project...

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#23
Personally I would have bought it, contacted Steve Jobs directly and right away (not called up Apple's support line, who of course cannot help with this issue), given him the phone without any questions or favors asked, and then just taken my chances that he would remember my publication in favorable light somewhere further down the line.

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#25
Surely the issue here is that the iPhone was lost property, and knowing full-well who the owners were (and who to give it back to) both parties - the guy in the bar and the Gizmondo editor - struck a deal for someone's lost phone.

Here in the UK, at least, it's an offense to knowingly sell-on lost property. Arrington seems to gloss over this and is only looking at it for scoop value. Details of an iPhone 4G prototype isn't information that could be argued needs to be exposed to the public. That's not journalism.

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#26
> Apple’s complaint will be that information about the phone leaked early, giving competitors a head start on copying the features. That’s a reasonable complaint

Really? I'm fairly sure there was nothing particularly interesting in the leak other than the leak itself. Res improvements and a front facing cameras? Yawn.

After the leak, 42% of Mashable readers preferred an HTC Incredible over the unreleased iPhone.

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#28
post #20

(note that I use the word “stolen” only to keep the description brief, not in any legal way) If Arrington wanted to leave the description "brief" he wouldn't have needed a parenthetical explanation.

nor would he have needed a picture of the burgler

Re: How Arrington Would Have Handled The Stolen iPhone Story

#29
post #5

It's very easy to say things like this after the fact; "I would never have done that". However, despite my vague dislike of Arrington I believe he wouldn't have actually paid for it. I disapprove of his conceit in posting this though...

He does say that they have declined to purchase information in the past, which lends credibility to his claim.
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