Rapper Ryan Leslie Ordered to Pay $1.2 Million Reward for Lost Laptop: Fair or Foul?

He should have stayed at 20, 000.. it sure sucks to be him right now. Poor guy.. but then again, a deal is a deal..

If it was like that when it got there then it's the shipping company's fault.

We will never know. According to what I read, RL destroyed the evidence. I am guessing that is why he lost -- jury did not believe him. Too suspicious that ths guy destroyed the most critical piece of evidence. Jus my opinion.

What happened to the idea of returning an item that is not yours just because it is the right thing to do?

Even though he offered a reward of one million + he expected it to contain the information that would have been worth it and since it didn't ..........Well he could have probably avoided going to court if he had offered the finder HALF

What technicalities? If someone wanted $1,000 from me and I had evidence to prove I did not owe it, and then I destroyed that evidence. I must accept the cosequences.

Sounds like he should be happy to pay the reward, he got it back, sounds like people who fake injury for rewards from liberal establishment does that sound fair or foul?????? Obama, Share your wealth your rich

He could buy a dozen laptops with that money, the reason he wanted his laptop back was because of the valuable information stored on it.

If it's a reward he offered of course it's fair. If he didn't want to pay it he shouldn't have offered it.

What's to stop him from just saying he couldn't access the files to get out of paying? Even if the files were corrupted somehow, I'm sure anyone who can pay 1.2 million dollars could pay a fraction of that cost to a computer lab to recover them. I have a hard time believing that the files were conveniently corrupted when it came time to pay up.

I looked at this case for school. I understand that RL dumped the laptop when he knew the German guy got a lawyer to sue. He could not prove that the laptop was corrupted, or that the files were not accessible. He testified, and could be the jury did not believe that RL really lost anything. (He just was looking for an excuse not to pay the reward) Don't know what proof he had that the "valuable files" were not there?

Whould you pay a reward to someone who brought your lost dog back dead? The computer is useless, just like a dead dog.

How do we know the computer was useless? Using your analogy, the person came to you and told you the dog was dead, but did not have the dog to show you. "I had your dog cremated. Ashes dumped in river. Trust me, he is dead. Just pay me." Seems like what RL says -- I dumped the computer, but trust me, it was useless.

If he offered the reward for the return of the device, then he owed it to the person who returned it.
If he stipulated that all the files had to be intact, then he has bad attorneys.

He can afford it

hell yeah!

The full quote: "In court yesterday, according to the New York Post, Leslie testified that his offered reward was “contingent upon his ability to retrieve several unreleased multitrack songs stored on the hard drive, which he said couldn’t be accessed after he got it back.” His lawyer, David Stefano explained Leslie’s position to ABC News, “He made a second reward video and offered $1 million for just the intellectual property on the external hard drive and computer, the session files.” DeStefano added that the session files were the main item the performer hoped to recover with his reward, “MP3s are nothing for a producer or a studio engineer, they can’t do anything with them. They need the session files. These were his compositions.” "

If the reward was for the songs, not the laptop itself, and the songs were lost....

Okay, yeah, the guy who returned it should get something for turning it in. He could have kept it.

But 1.2 Million? For a laptop that no longer holds the songs that made it valuable in the first place?

Foul.

Agreed; if he had it stipulated that the reward was contingent upon being able to retrieve the aforementioned files, then he shouldn't be forced to pay the full reward.

I'm not judging by intelligence...I'm judging by fact.
Can he afford it? Yes.
Will he pay it? Yes.
Do I think it's a smart move? Y--no.

Man finds stolen laptop as soon as there is an award for it......must be a coincidence derp derp derp derp derp derp.

It may be the law but its definitely not justice. I don't care that he made a mistake with his offer, he lost his intellectual property and because of semantics he was forced to pay money for that. I'm shocked at the lack of sympathy for him, and some of you are even accusing him of having stolen information or dirty things on that laptop? The master file of original music is incredibly valuable. He's STILL offering one mill for those files back, so it's obvious what his intent was.

You offer a reward, you have to make good on it. It's not like he can't afford it.

Should have added that everything would have to be in the condition in which he lost it.

Crap. Meant to choose Fair. Deal's a deal. If the reward is up, pay it up. He should have known what he was going to say before he said it.

Why not? He can afford it. Let's see if he wants it bad enough.

For that much, I'd rather just get the illuminate keyboard laptop with a touch screen.

He created the terms, he has to abide by them.

Next time, don't make offers you can't keep

He did not say the files had to be there at all, let alone readable.

What he should have done is sent the drive to a data recovery company, and for a couple thousand dollars he probably could have gotten them restored.

Doesn't matter
He got the laptop back.
There were no stipulations placed on the reward.
HIS laptop (assuming it was proven to be his, in court) is HIS laptop. That's all.

Actually, according to his lawyer, he never offered one million for the laptop, but for the files contained therein. I'm not about to take the time to look it up, but, if that's true, then he did make very specific stipulations.

of course his LAWYER will say that. Prove it though.
It all comes down to what can be proven publicly. 10:1, he did NOT actually give specific requirements. We don't think of that till it is too late

Again, I don't care enough about this issue to research for either the defense or the persecution.

His price....LOL