Slashdot Mirror
Wall Street Traders Charged With Copying Code To Start Their Own Company
coondoggie writes "Talk about starting a business on shaky ground. The Manhattan District Attorney's office says former Wall Street traders stole electronic trading source code and data from their then trading firm in an effort to start up their own financial business."
Sending yourself pilfered code through your company email account is probably not the wisest plan.
Vuu, Lu and another former Flow Traders worker, Glen Cressman, all have been charged with unlawful duplication of computer-related material and unauthorized use of secret scientific material.
As one who maintains code for the securities industry, calling it "scientific" is an insult to science.
Information wants to be free, man. Seriously though this is par for the course in business. The only unusual thing is that they got caught and the courts are taking the claims seriously. Low hanging, fat, and easy, just the way the justice system likes 'em.
A small company clean-roomed an existing DOS, and Gates bought that--for $75k. Technically speaking it wasn't arbitrage because it wasn't immediately flipped to IBM and there was some assumed risk that nobody would buy it. OTOH, he definitely bought cheaply in one market and sold dearly in another--one of the greatest trades of all time.
Exploiting the difference between ethical and legal for the betterment of one's hip pocket. The American Corporate Dream.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
I sure do hope you plan on selling your house for no more than what you paid for it. Anything else would be unethical.
"They obviously do not have what it takes to write their own...."
You can say this about nearly all programmers, artists, singers, etc. To pretend that your creation is unique means that you have to ignore everything that you've learned in your life up to that point. It's the height of hubris.
Even Einstein based much of his insights on what Maxwell did.
Everything is derivative. The only difference is magnitude.
--
BMO