If you listen to Frank Peters' intro, Caulfield had apparently been fired from the company prior to the interview being published.

Not that TechCrunch ever messes up their facts...

Maybe he couldn't get in touch with him because he didn't know how to spell his name. Oh wait, he says he didn't feel he should. Misspelling the name was an entirely separate fail.

After the Scamville fame, Arrington puts things back into perspective. They just can't bother thoroughly researching a story, because somebody (Mashable, ReadWriteWeb) will beat them in a race to FIRST POST!!1

Interesting part is that Arrington used to be a lawyer, and he used to work for the firm mentioned. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/tweetphoto-dan-caufield...

Yes, he used to work for Wilson Sonsini.

This is when I'd like to have a yelp for service providers, or a "karma keeper". Today, a lawyer at Wilson Sonsini did some bad karma. Another day, another partner there will do a great thing. Can we keep the score somewhere?

Eventually the scumbags would rise to the top and we'd all know better.

Did some bad karma - aka, represented his client?

They sent out a letter on law firm letterhead that made reference to violations of the law and wrapped up with a blunt request for a response within 24 hours. They are trying to bully the interviewer by using carefully crafted language to make it look like the interviewer could face legal consequences from not complying with the request. In fact, the interviewer has done nothing illegal and has no legal obligation to take down the podcast containing the interview nor an obligation to even respond to the letter.

This, is bad karma.

If you think that's bad karma, you clearly haven't dealt with lawyers much. This is about par for the course.

It's a huge (and generally very reputable) firm -- they're kind of the gold standard in the startup world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Sonsini_Goodrich_&_R...

650 attorneys...

This feels much more like a publicity stunt. We don't know if the CEO was planning to leave all along and they just decided to try something to get press and spill the beans about some Kodak connections in the process.

Think about it, if this hadn't gotten sticky, that little interview never would have reached a real audience, and they clearly wanted everyone to know about the connections they were building.

This is all wild speculation and conspiracy theory, but if I'm right, it worked out nicely. I've now heard of TweetPhoto and it sounds like they are going to be connecting it with a major photo printing company... so... interesting.

I don't know any self-respecting CEO that would agree on that.

They better be paying the CEO a nice severance package for him to agree in ruining this reputation for good.

You have a wild imagination man.

If there was ever a call for "Dear Lawyers: I read your letter. Go pound sand. Sincerely," ...

http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman/arkell.htm <- This is my favourite legal response

Here's another famous one, at the otehr end of the scale: http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm (The "Our response" link is the one, but the others may be useful for context.)

Interesting to see that not only does Monster cable rip-off un-knowledgeable customers but they also shelter their profits from US taxes by paying an offshore holding company a royalty on the designs. Truly an odious company.

"This story just screams amateur hour, although I can’t figure out exactly who’s the amateur."

maybe you, mr Arrington... maybe you.