iPhone 4.0 lost or stolen: Should Apple sue Gawker

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Is purchasing a stolen good offensive? The answer is certainly ‘Yes’. But what if someone buys it without knowing whether it comes from a unauthentic source? I think this might be the case for Gawker media when they paid $5,000 to get the possession of the ‘lost’ iPhone. The Gawker Media owner Nick Denton is claiming that they never knew that it was a ‘genuine prototype’ of iPhone until their gadget blog Gizmodo dismantled it. But the question that still poke our mind is why they paid $5,000 for a simple iPhone 3G, if they had no clue about it? Secondly, what caused them to purchase it secretly from an unknown seller, instead of Apple store?

Gawker media is already facing criticism for publicly flouting the trade law — purchasing stolen merchandise. According to Denton, they were trying to detain the Apple engineer who lost the iPhone in a bar called, Gourmet Haus Staudt in Redwood City, California. They returned the device to Apple as soon as Apple official communicated with them. Does it appear convincing? Well, People do defend themselves by saying that their intention was to return ‘that’ thing, after being caught.

The finder of the iPhone didn’t take major initiatives to hand the device back to its owner. He might have notified the bar owner Volcker Staudt about it. Volcker reported that the Apple employee, who lost the device was under deep water, incessantly asking for it. “The most reasonable effort would have been to bring it back to us, because he knows that person would be going back to us first,” says Volcker.

Apple has reasons to file a case against the Gawker media. Gizmodo presented the story putting themselves at the safe side. They are talking on irrelevant issues, keeping tongue tight on the back door deal. They know that the seller had not taken any reasonable effort to return the iPhone, yet they are vouching for him. Just imagine for a moment, will we get to see Steve Jobs unveiling iPhone 4.0 with the same excitement as we found him during the release of first iPhone or iPad, when it is already leaked?