Gadgetory

this episode of ask the Buffaloes brought to you by jackthreads welcome back to another episode of ask the Buffalo I'm your host Jon wrenches to show where you could ask me any question you've got from the wide world of technology and sometimes a little bit outside of it that's what this week is all about on last week's episode I vasta buffo give you guys an office tour we showed you around the TechnoBuffalo offices where we spend almost all of our days you met the staff that works out of this office one of the things that I showed in that video was a document up on my office wall that was a court document i mentioned the lawsuit that we were involved in i said if you want to know more information about it leave comments down below and a lot of you did leave a comments down below so in this episode of ask the Buffalo I'm going to explain to you what the lawsuit was all about what we fought for the better part of a year and what ended up happening this is asked a buffalo let's go get started so about two years ago the Droid Bionic was getting ready to come out I was announced actually at CES we have chanced even play with it and then Motorola said you know what we're gonna wait on the droid bionic and there was a few months where we didn't know what was gonna happen with it flash forward to about the sep tember August time frame and motor oil was getting ready to announce a new updated droid bionic was a totally different phone just had the same name we got anonymous email via our tips at TechnoBuffalo com saying hey I've got some shots of a cloud of material that's going to be included with the droid bionic and it listed all of the specs so they were sent over we verify that they were indeed legitimate I wrote and edited a post one of our authors edited as well we gave the final approval it went to editor in chief and then it got published turns out we were absolutely dead on with what did droid bionic was going to be well the pretty house wasn't very happy that and I'll leave their name out of it you could search for this court case though it's everything's a matter of public record now that it's over they were pretty much upset about what had happened so one of our other editors got an email a few days later saying hey do you have a reveal your sources and our response was only with the court order I think journalism is only as stable as a foundation it's on and if sources don't feel like they can come forward anonymously and have that anonymity that goes with it I think journalism as a whole is going to fail not just in the tech world a few days later pretty house tried to send us a court order they actually tried to find me at my home but had a hard time finding that a technobuffalo has a registered agent that we use for all legal documents it was sent to our registered agent registered agent got it to me they essentially filed suit against us against Google because our email is hosted with Google and they thought that Google would share the information they also filed suit against AT&T because the pictures you could see a reflection a little bit of a person or a phone then I thought the pictures were taken with the device that resembled the iphone and of course a verizon iphone is already out at this time and pretty much every other device has that same shape and they wanted the information they want to know the sources name I countdown our attorneys everybody knows attorneys you pay them by the hour and they are not cheap by the hour but I contact the attorney and we were very quickly informed that we had were protected by federal shield laws this particular printing house was in Illinois so we're also protected by state she of laws in the state of Illinois actually as some of the strongest shield laws and also by First Amendment rights the freedom of speech and the protection of the press it seemed pretty open and shut so we don't obviously talk about politics what's going on in the world but we do talk about technology and that is considered news as far as I was concerned we're always on CNBC we're on Fox News Wall Street Journal has a text section where they covered exactly the same stuff that we do USA Today has the same thing in every major newspaper covers technology so I figured you know what we're good open-and-shut case google essentially said a very nice letter back which the gist of it was we're google eep I don't want to piss us off Google was dropped from it 18 t said closely the same thing AT&T was dropped from it so we filed a motion back saying not a chance we are not going to tell you our source you can take that information and I'll see you in court many many many lawyer hours and many documents are put together essentially the case that we said was we are journalists we have journalistic procedures we have steps we go through before you publish we not just don't just publish information without checking and verifying sources and we you send it to the judge and it seemed pretty open-and-shut to us the judge disagreed this particular judge is located in Illinois and the judge said no you have to reveal a source to which I said nope not gonna be a source on a personal note I was very prepared to take this as far as I needed to not reveal the source I would have probably gone to prison for a short period of time it's not reveal a source that's how strongly I felt about this if we had lost this case it would have been a huge huge dent for nocturnal of them as a whole but specifically the consumer electronics journalism could you imagine if sites didn't feel safe publishing anonymous sources we would never know what was coming whether you agree or disagree with all that information getting out there it's very important that sites have the ability to do that and do that free of persecution so for our industry and my own livelihood I could not let us lose this case the judge disagreed without we're gas go to appeal and before you can go to appealed you have to file something called a motion for reconsideration we're essentially asked the judge dude come on we filed that motion we put in new information in that time Huffington Post had won a Pulitzer Prize we put in all kinds of other information about blogs being considered journalists and it's really the first one of the first cases that was had a ruling I have friends that run other sites and they were getting emails and cease and desist letters from other companies that were stating TechnoBuffalo versus you know this company asked precedent so really was we were treading very dangerous water story was picked up in all the should main Chicago papers at Tribune for example a lot of national publications perhaps a judge shot maybe didn't and on his motion for reconsideration he actually reconsidered I said okay technobuffalo does qualify as journalists they did follow journalistic steps if got journalistic procedures in place and they are totally protected you not have to reveal their source this was a better part of a year that it took to get to this point I sort of condensed everything and for a year we thought we had a few options at that point I could either counter sue the printing house to recoup legal fees which would have been a long long battle would have taken more legal fees and who knows what would have happened or it could just let it go there so the printing out said okay we fought this long enough it's been a year we spent a lot of money we burned through a good portion of our capital trying to fend this that's how strongly I felt about it eventually the printing out said we're not going to file an appeal we're not going to come after you again have to defend this if you don't come after us for legal fees seems amicable enough and the case was settled and over with it was a really long hard-fought year I didn't share what was going on sort of as it was happening because in all honesty was too overwhelming for me there were many many sleepless nights I was worried that cops were gonna show up my house to serve me with more papers my wife was very concerned it really affected in my life and could have potentially affected my livelihood in lobby hood of everybody at TechnoBuffalo it was just it was very nerve-racking gear for me it was very tenuous and I'm really happy that we've won so let me take a minute from talking about legal stuff to thank our friends and sponsors at jackthreads you see my wardrobe I don't like to go shopping by like to have new clothes jack Reds is the perfect solution when we suckers pay full price luv alternative apparel brands like Kidrobot Hurley and Suzie banega wasting all your cash on them listen up it's going these premium brands it up to eighty percent off every day if you're gonna go buy them anyway you might as well save any % not at the leader care there's a new invite only shopping club for guys called jack thread tearing up street skate and surf wear brands of prices that will melt your brain there's a wait list of join but it's gonna Jack dread com / techno you can sign up today you can get the latest clothes that are out there if you want to look like our very own cameraman Ralph you pick up the Horatio jacket and red checker pattern it looks pretty awesome you're not to leave your chair to get it it's one of my favorite things go ahead and check it out at Jackthreads journalism is changing it's moving away from printed pressed online and if there aren't clear definitions about what qualifies as press or what doesn't I think gentlemen as a whole is going to be doomed and perhaps that's to macro and we're just a very very tiny tiny little pea in a very large journalism pod by oscilla felt strongly enough i had a defendant if you don't have principles if you don't feel strongly about something in this world and you're gonna stand for nothing and I felt something that I had to defense so that was a course of action that we took that was a story behind that piece of paper up on my wall if you want to search for the case you're welcome to you can go for the Chicago Tribune and look up technobuffalo you can see the articles that were written there about you can get more information about respect I'll leave all the other party's names out of it thank you guys for watching thank you for tuning in for another episode of ask the Buffalo we're back every week at brand new questions we'll have tech questions coming at you next week check out TechnoBuffalo calm for the ladies and greatest tech news I'm John Ranger I'll see you next video