Court Rules Code Not Physical Property

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who downloaded source code for the investment firm's high-speed trading system from the company's computers, was wrongly charged with theft of property because the code did not qualify as a physical object under a federal theft statute, according to a court opinion published Wednesday." Adds the submitter: "The RIAA's definitely got to give Goldman Sachs their secret recipe ..."

Comments

"Intellectual" Proerty

[SirBitBucket]

Code can only be created by intellectuals, like /. readers; therefore, it is Intellectual Property, not some ho-hum, run-of-the-mill property...

Re:"Intellectual" Proerty

[Anonymous Coward]

Most men skip the design stage and go straight to the 'build and grow' stages. If successful, we tend to call the men "parents," but good luck getting the new automatons to actually mow the lawn.

Re:"Intellectual" Proerty

[Chris Burke]

Well as inheritor of the intellectual property of Genghis Khan, I will be replying to this cease-and-desist with a horde of mounted archers.

Re:"Intellectual" Proerty

[julesh]

You'll find most patents expire at the point of a sword.

Re:"Intellectual" Proerty

[painandgreed]

The patent for his procedures has surely expired by this point.

Stop quoting laws to us. We carry swords. -- Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

Procedural error

[girlintraining]

This is a procedural error, not a statement that 'stealing' code isn't a crime. Rest assured, legislation is being drafted that will ensure that stealing from a poor, innocent company, will earn you at least 30 years in jail and an 8 trillion dollar fine. Really, it would be less troublesome to just murder the CEO the way the laws are being written these days...

Re:Procedural error

[girlintraining]

What I don't understand is why they want to believe that Stealing code is a piece of property....But Importing Code from another country is just information (not requiring import taxes etc....) How on earth can it be both?

Easy. Like this: "Hey, legislator, I want a new law passed that makes absolutely no sense but will benefit me greatly. In exchange, I'll pay for your re-election campaign." "derp derp herp derp." "Okay then! Thank you for your cooperation."

Re:Procedural error

[PPH]

Correct. Not that what Aleynikov did wasn't wrong. But for our legal system to operate properly and fairly, we've go to stick to the rules. Now, I'm no legal scholar, but the judge evidently had reservations about exactly what the intent of Congress was when they wrote that federal statute. And that's a good thing. It will force them (Congress) to go back to the drawing board and address the different aspects of stealing/copying/damaging this class of property. And they very well may make a distinction between snatching a copy for yourself and depriving the original owner of the use of their property. And they might address the various ways that this deprivation can affect the owner, from an outright denial of service to the (imaginary or real) loss of potential market share. And each case could get its own legal treatment, which might end up being a good thing all around.

Re:Procedural error

[girlintraining]

And each case could get its own legal treatment, which might end up being a good thing all around.

Up until you said that, I pretty much agreed with your post. A major goal of our justice system is to create a fair and impartial judgement; Creating 'one offs' defeats that. The punishment for theft of code should be the same whether it's Microsoft's Windows 7 source code, or Linux. And even if the source code is publicly available, that doesn't release someone from following the licensing agreement, which brings us back to the problem of making violations of a licensing agreement a crime.

That's why it has been left in civil court instead of criminal court: Imprisonment should never be a power vested in a private individual or organization.

Re:Procedural error

[Dcnjoe60]

Schrodinger's Cat?

Re:Procedural error

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a procedural error, not a statement that 'stealing' code isn't a crime. Rest assured, legislation is being drafted that will ensure that stealing from a poor, innocent company, will earn you at least 30 years in jail and an 8 trillion dollar fine. Really, it would be less troublesome to just murder the CEO the way the laws are being written these days...

'This' is exactly what people are complaining about when people call copyright infringement 'theft'. It's not. There are different laws governing the two. They are wholly different concepts. The more they are conflated, the more that stupid mistakes like this one will happen, and any decent defense lawyer will keep racking up victories when this happens.

Re:Procedural error

[element-o.p.]

"Credit fraud? My God, that's worse than murder!"

It was funny when I heard that line in "Max Headroom" back when I was a kid...

Re:Procedural error

[rhook]

which brings us back to the problem of making violations of a licensing agreement a crime.

EULA's are for the most part unenforceable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement#Enforceability_of_EULAs_in_the_United_States

Re:Procedural error

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

What I don't understand is why they want to believe that Stealing code is a piece of property....

But Importing Code from another country is just information (not requiring import taxes etc....)

How on earth can it be both?

Erm, it can't? Hence the ruling that says it wasn't physical property?

Criminal charges vs. civil suit

[sohmc]

That's the difference between the RIAA and Goldman Sachs. The RIAA doesn't arrest anyone or even get the state to arrest anyone. They just file lawsuits. Goldman Sachs actually wanted criminal charges.

I'm sure that Goldman Sachs will now file a copyright infringement lawsuit.

But it begs the question if anyone has ever been jailed for copyright infringement. My google skills are lacking now that I'm in my post-lunch coma...

Re:Criminal charges vs. civil suit

[am 2k]

But it begs the question if anyone has ever been jailed for copyright infringement.

Yep: Kino.to Admin Gets 2,5 Years Prison Sentence.

Re:Criminal charges vs. civil suit

[jbengt]

I'm sure that Goldman Sachs will now file a copyright infringement lawsuit.

I'm not at all sure of that - a trade secret can't be copyrighted, can it?

"Theft" of data isn't quite right.

[LostCluster]

This is as old as Napster and other file sharing technologies. The copyright holders would rather use the laws for "theft" than "copyright infringement" but that's just not going to work. Good lawyer work on the defense side I think.

I'm sure this isn't over.

[beschra]

Sounds like they just picked the wrong law for the charges.

Re:I'm sure this isn't over.

[beschra]

Two reasons it's not over: criminal vs. civil and appeals.

GS wasn't selling the code

[alen]

if this was Windows or some other piece of sold software then he would still be in jail

GS was using the code for internal use and not reselling it. interstate commerce does not apply then according to the court. because there was no commerce

Re:"Intellectual" Property

[icebike]

Code can only be created by intellectuals, like /. readers; therefore, it is Intellectual Property, not some ho-hum, run-of-the-mill property...

Seems like your attempt at snark was almost as successful as your spelling in the title.

But, perhaps by accident you've hit the nail on the head. This should have been charged with a copyright or trade secrets violation, or some security breach, not theft of property. Most states have laws covering criminal use of computers, as does the federal government. There was never a need to base these charges on the theft statutes.

In California (by way of example) there are specific laws concerning taking information from a computer in an unauthorized way. (Penal Code Section 499c 2.)

But the bigger question is how many others have been charged with simple Property Theft under federal law in the past for this same sort of breach (downloading source code) and paid the penalty or served the time?

To what extent does this change the landscape for computer break-ins?

Re:In other news: water is wet!

[Fned]

All they have done is stated that code is non-corporeal. They haven't said stealing it isn't a crime...

Who gives a shit if it's still a crime, do you realize what this means?!

Now whenever someone says "copyright infringment is theft", instead of spending dozens of paragraphs pointing out the gigantic unpatchable holes in their spurious-ass inevitable failure of an argument, we can now just say, "Goldman-Sachs v. Aleynikov, your argument is invalid. STFU forever."

This will save SO much time in the future.

Re:In other news: water is wet!

[Grumbleduke]

Some of us have been able to do this for years, using Oxford v Moss (there's also Boardman v Phipps which is a House of Lords case, but on trusts, and the information != property point is kind of obiter).

Of course, then they go "well, OK, it's not technically theft, but it's still taking someone else's stuff without paying for it" - remember, you don't have debates about copyright enforcement law, you have rants from either side; no one really seems to care about verifiable facts.

The RIAA

[nedlohs]

aren't stupid enough to go for a theft charge.

Let's see they could try for a theft charge that the person stole 50 songs at 99c a song on itunes for under $50 wroth of theft.

Or they chould try for a copyright infringment charge that the person aided in thousands of copies being made by sharing the files. With statutory damages of $150,000 up for grabs.

Wow, hard choice...

Re:Words...

[Travelsonic]

*sigh* We're talking factual matters, not bad article titles. Stop trying to paint false hypocrisy as others continue to try - it isn't working, unless your goal is to look dumb.