Guilty of AppleCrime

Perhaps in our great futures, we may all share in the guilt by association of committing the ThoughtCrime of revealing a new iPhone to the world. In the most classic example of no good deed goes unpunished, Gizmodo is paying the heavy price for thumbing its nose at Steve Jobs.

Funny, when an Arkansas court finds for WalMart or Tyson, its some kind of hillbilly justice. When a San Mateo, Calif., court greenlights an evidence raid into Jason Chin's house looking for God knows -- excuse me -- Steve knows what, that's alright because it is the enlightenment of California.

Now, how Chin got the phone still seems more than fishy. Perhaps he plied the unsuspecting Apple employee with that "really good" German beer that led to his "loss" of the phone. Perhaps Chin is culpable in this deal.

Nevertheless, is no one else just a little creeped out by this? Is protecting corporate secrets that important -- to run ram shod over an individual's rights?

It also will force a lot of legacy media to think long and hard about their opinion of the blogosphere. Already the stories are aping similar headlines: are blogger's journalists?

Federal and California laws would appear to provide some shield for journalists and their newsrooms. What if your newsroom happens to be your living room? If Chin worked for the San Jose Mercury, would Apple have made this run and would mainstream media be even more outraged.

In the San Mateo warrant, the computers taken from Chin's house were "used as the means of committing a felony."

Once upon a time, they called that journalism.

However, Gizmodo says it paid for the lost phone -- $5,000 -- and to many legacy media it smacks of the same kind of "checkbook journalism" the purists of the field love to cluck about. TMZ's payoffs and network TV "exclusive" deals -- just National Enquirer techniques of the 1970s redeux.

The Old Grey Lady's on-line has a very interesting take on the cost and potential profit for Gizmodo. Is the lawsuit and associated costs worth the publicity and traffic bump for the previously unknown to middle America geek site?

Only if everyone spells their name right. And, to keep it current, makes a permalink.