[citation][nom]4745454b[/nom]I don't see how this doesn't apply to downloading media files. Code is code. Whether it controls bank software, puts noises on my speakers, or images on my screen I don't see why stealing one is ok while the other two aren't. Other then of course Goldman Sachs didn't donate enough money.[/citation]
Media files aren't code, they are copyrighted pieces of art.
[citation][nom]wmalinowski[/nom]It does not matter the code is sold or not. The code was to be used internal by GS (which would classify as private property ). This guy took the code without authorization by GS. That my definition of a thief. Off with the hands....[/citation]
If the code isn't copyrighted, then GS has no legal claims over it at all. Some other company can swoop in (or this *thief*) and copyright it and then it belongs to them if the copyright goes through (wouldn't surprise me at all if it did).
[citation][nom]gg123[/nom]Of course "intellectual property" is a fraud. At the beginning it was called "privileges" or "monopolies" etc, it is a creation of the State.Indeed you can't own an idea or series of electrical signals 100110 etc. so there's no crime in downloading stuff from the Internet or trying to copy a recipe you've seen on TV.However stealing a DVD is theft for the obvious reason that it is a scarce resource and that by doing so, the legitimate owner of the DVD will have no DVD left.But the problem here is that this employee broke his contract.I guess he had agreed not to make this knowledge/idea/code public and only to use it while working for Goldman Sachs.So he has broken an agreement and Goldman Sachs has the right to demand reparation.(Although some might that argue that Goldman Sachs does not deserve anymore money since it is actively participating in robbing and enslaving the taxpayers of this planet but... that was not the point I wanted to make)[/citation]
You're completely wrong. I can own a digital copy of 0s and 1s just as much as I could own a hard copy of them on paper. Software can be copyrighted. Digital media can be copyrighted. Some things relevant to either can be patented or also copyrighted (such as a framework or a specific method for creating them).
[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]These codes wern't sold and didn't constitute of interstate commerce. A movie or music is interstate commerce and thus you can be charge with pirating. That is why it is a federal crime.[/citation]
That's another part of it too, excellent explanation there.
[citation][nom]gzhang[/nom]So mp3s are just a bunch of bits and bytes and are not properties either, and people can copy them for free?Also, "The ruling also addresses an argument by the government which claims that code is considered physical property and covered under a 1988 amendment to the NSPA", so the judges "re-interpreted" (created) law to fit this case, in a sense judges have openly changed the law congress made![/citation]
You misread the article. Reading comprehension, you should work on it.
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Intellectual property is not a fraud. This is no different than music or books. If you copy someone else's term paper and turn it in as your own for a class, that's plagiarism and you can, and should, be expelled. No actual physical paper was stolen, but you misrepresented the ideas on that paper as your own.What this employee did was accept payment for a company to create something, which he did. That something belongs to the company that paid for it. If an employer can not own what is created by people they hire to create for them, they will simply stop paying people to make things, which, in case you do not understand, means they stop hiring people.This mentality of "I am entitled to use what anyone else has or comes up with" is one of the propblems our society and culture has today. If this person wanted to retain rights to the software he made, he should have come up with it using his own resources, not take money from someone else to make it.[/citation]
The reason that GS lost is because they were stupid about this and didn't make sure that they were protected under law like any smart company should. They failed to use the software in the proper way and are paying the price for it. This guy wrote the software and then took it. Had the software, as the article stated, been used/intended for the proper context, then GS would have won. Had GS bothered to copyright this software, then they would have won. GS is jsut as much at fault for this mess as the thief himself because they are the ones who so stupidly gave him the legal opportunity to take the code.
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]Yeah that's one of the most dangerous parts of it. The courts have for years been more and more making law and that is blatantly unconstitutional. All they can do is rule whether or not a law is constitutional or not, they can not change the law.[/citation]
What the judges did was not change the law despite it seemingly needing updating. The law was on their side. Again, reading comprehension.
The ruling also addresses an argument by the government which claims that code is considered physical property and covered under a 1988 amendment to the NSPA. Prosecutors insisted that the amendment reflected an intent by Congress to include non-physical forms of property in the law such as Aleynikov’s theft of the source code. But the judges denied the claim, stating that the 24-year-old amendment referred to the transfer and transmission of money.
"We decline to stretch or update statutory words of plain and ordinary meaning in order to better accommodate the digital age," the judges wrote.
Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, who agreed with the majority opinion and the way the judges had reached it, said Aleynikov would not have gotten off if the EEA had been better written. “[It] is hard for me to conclude that Congress, in this law, actually meant to exempt the kind of behavior in which Aleynikov engaged" he said. " hope that Congress will return to the issue and state, in appropriate language, what I believe they meant to make criminal in the EEA."
Strait from the article.
[citation][nom]joe44994422[/nom]Completely redicilous. While source code may not be a "phsyical object" you certainly can "own" source code. If you cannot own source code then authors of songs or books cannot "own" those either. I can write my source code into a book if I really wanted too and it would "exist" just the same as a book manuscript or sheet music. I'm assuming the company at hand paid the guy to write this code for them. It belongs to them and he had no reason to make a backup copy of it wether he "used" it or not. Can I copy a DVD if I promise not to watch it?The guy made unauthorized backups of material that he did not own. That is no different the downloading a song or a movie wether you "use" or "sell" them. The fact that nothing is "missing" from the Bank does not mean that something wasn't "taken". The best argument that can be made is that he does not have a liscense to use the code in any way. The code, if copyrighted, is protected from unauthorized replication by others without the consent of the copyright owner. He has no practicle use for the code in any way and has no reason to have a copy of it. These things need to be thought of more in the lines of "liscensing" then by actual physical property theft. If I prepare a demonstraiton and charge people to see it, anyone who watches without paying is "stealing" the work I have done. People do not "have" to watch my demonstraiton, they do not need to agree about the cost and can only watch if they want too.If I am hired to write programs for a comany, then the company "owns" that work. No differently then if I hire a contractor to build an addition onto my house. That addition belongs to me and NOT the contractor. No one can "take" my addition without asking. If it were possible to even copyright the layout of an addition (it might be?) then no one could legally build the same addition that I have.People need to stop being so linear in their thinking and realize that virtual theft is theft all the same as phsyical theft.[/citation]
The problem is partially that the code was not copyrighted.
[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]You're analogy is awful. You are comparing something not copyrighted, nor trademarked, to something that is.A more proper analogy would be an engineer at Ford coming up with an idea for a new car, being paid by Ford for that idea, and then taking it to GM and letting them build it. That is most certainly theft.This person admits he took proprietary information, the definition of proprietary meaning it belonged to the company. Just because he hadn't sold it (yet?) does not make it not theft.[/citation]
Ford has the intent to use the idea to make a product that they would sell. GS did not, so it was not protected as commercial property. Your analogy also fails. The laws need to be rewritten.
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