Computer code Is not property and can’t b stolen

[Kingghidorah]

Full article title is: Appeals Court Rules Computer Code Is Not "Property" and Can’t Be Stolen

http://j.mp/HxAkil

[rbarreira]

Of course courts would take a year to state the obvious... That stealing something requires depriving someone of their property. (the same reason why it's stupid to say that downloading a movie is theft)

Obviously this doesn't mean that copyright can be ignored without consequence.

[RoadWarrior]

Full article title is: Appeals Court Rules Computer Code Is Not "Property" and Can’t Be Stolen

When you rent a house from somebody and walk away after a month without actually paying any rent, you haven't stolen any "property" or physical goods either. But in most jurisdictions, you've still committed a crime.

In the context of software, I think copyright infringement rather than theft is probably the most frequent approach. Although theft can also work for a commercial software product stored on a shelf, where there actually is a physical product.

There, wasted some of my time too.

[mclane]

of course you can steal computerchess code. that has happened at the Aegon tournament in den haag with nimzo !

later after the tournament somebody came with a "new" chess program
that was in fact nimzo. chrilly could find evidence in the stolen chess program code.
i think there was the birthday of his wife integrated somewhere in the save game scores or something like this.

[Don]

Of course courts would take a year to state the obvious... That stealing something requires depriving someone of their property. (the same reason why it's stupid to say that downloading a movie is theft)

No, you are wrong. Theft is taking someone of value from someone (without the rights to it) and it does not have to be a material object.

For example, someone could hack your bank account and transfer money from your account to their own. If the "courts" ruled that this was not theft, how would you feel about it?

This is where I think people end up getting twisted up. I'm not saying you do this, but people rationalize theft by re-defining it as something else in their minds.

So you can define "theft" as anything you want it to be and so can the courts, but regardless of how it's defined it comes down to some sort of violation of another person - in some way you are hurting another person by taking something you don't have a right to. It doesn't matter if it's a person or a business, it's still people who are involved.

I did not read the article so I don't have an opinion on what happened or why or how the courts ruled in this specific case.

Obviously this doesn't mean that copyright can be ignored without consequence.

[rbarreira]

Of course courts would take a year to state the obvious... That stealing something requires depriving someone of their property. (the same reason why it's stupid to say that downloading a movie is theft)

No, you are wrong. Theft is taking someone of value from someone (without the rights to it) and it does not have to be a material object.

For example, someone could hack your bank account and transfer money from your account to their own. If the "courts" ruled that this was not theft, how would you feel about it?

This is where I think people end up getting twisted up. I'm not saying you do this, but people rationalize theft by re-defining it as something else in their minds.

So you can define "theft" as anything you want it to be and so can the courts, but regardless of how it's defined it comes down to some sort of violation of another person - in some way you are hurting another person by taking something you don't have a right to. It doesn't matter if it's a person or a business, it's still people who are involved.

I did not read the article so I don't have an opinion on what happened or why or how the courts ruled in this specific case.

Obviously this doesn't mean that copyright can be ignored without consequence.

The bank account example has nothing to do with this thread. Obviously if someone transfers money from my account to another one I do not have the money afterwards... Not so hard to see the difference here.

Don't read too much into what I said. I didn't make any statements about ethics or what is right or even legal. I just said something about the word "theft".

[Graham Banks]

I did not read the article so I don't have an opinion on what happened or why or how the courts ruled in this specific case.

Appeals Court Rules Computer Code Is Not "Property" and Can’t Be Stolen

Sergey Aleynikov, an ex-Goldman-Sachs programmer, spent a year in prison for downloading source code of the firm's high-speed trading software before his sentence was overturned in February. Today, the court explained why—downloading computer code doesn't constitute stealing under the National Stolen Property Act.

The 2nd Circuit Appeals Court ruled that since computer code cannot be physically obtained, it doesn't fit the legal description of a stolen good. "Because Aleynikov did not ‘assume physical control' over anything when he took the source code, and because he did not thereby ‘deprive [Goldman] of its use,' Aleynikov did not violate the [National Stolen Property Act]," the court wrote in its decision.

In addition, the Appeals Court struck down charges against Aleynikov of violating the Electronic Espionage Act since the software was never destined for foreign markets. Specifically, the judges wrote, "Because the HFT system was not designed to enter or pass in commerce, or to make something that does, Aleynikov's theft of source code relating to that system was not an offense under the EEA."

The court was quick to point out that this decision should not be interpreted for all cases of electronic theft, however the legal recognition that code isn't physical property (which people have been saying for years) is sure to make this case a focal point in future MPAA/RIAA wranglings.

[Don]

Of course courts would take a year to state the obvious... That stealing something requires depriving someone of their property. (the same reason why it's stupid to say that downloading a movie is theft)

No, you are wrong. Theft is taking someone of value from someone (without the rights to it) and it does not have to be a material object.

For example, someone could hack your bank account and transfer money from your account to their own. If the "courts" ruled that this was not theft, how would you feel about it?

This is where I think people end up getting twisted up. I'm not saying you do this, but people rationalize theft by re-defining it as something else in their minds.

So you can define "theft" as anything you want it to be and so can the courts, but regardless of how it's defined it comes down to some sort of violation of another person - in some way you are hurting another person by taking something you don't have a right to. It doesn't matter if it's a person or a business, it's still people who are involved.

I did not read the article so I don't have an opinion on what happened or why or how the courts ruled in this specific case.

Obviously this doesn't mean that copyright can be ignored without consequence.

The bank account example has nothing to do with this thread. Obviously if someone transfers money from my account to another one I do not have the money afterwards... Not so hard to see the difference here.

But that is exactly the kind of rationalization that I am talking about. There is no real difference except in semantics.

Imagine that I need Windows 7 for my computer. Let's say it would cost $200.00. I purchase it and get the product and MS gets $200.00. You might say that Microsoft is now $200.00 richer.

OR I could decide to go to a piracy site where I can download a copy of Windows 7 for FREE. Now you say it's "easy to see the difference here" which implies that it's "difficult" for you to see this as theft, but I disagree.

Just to make it clear for you, both transactions come out the same, in one way or another $200.00 was involved and it's only a question of WHO got the $200.00 (or got to keep it, which is the same thing.) In the second case you deprived the retailer and Microsoft of the funds for your own personal benefit. So it may seem straightforward for you to say that "nobody was hurt" but I vehemently disagree.

You can rationalize this away by saying that it's cheap to make a copy and therefore (in your mind) they do not have the right to charge so much (or anything) and that if you get a pirated copy they were not hurt at all since it cost them nothing for you to get a copy. I think this (incorrect) reasoning is why you think it is "easy to see the difference" when there is no difference. Now I'm no fan of Microsoft, and in fact in many ways most large corporations are criminal organizations. However to expose how poorly you have reasoned on this, creating a product such as Windows 7 is a non-trivial undertaking which is payed for by the reasonable expectation that people will pay for it. They pour tons of man years of work into the creation, testing, advertising of these products and no doubt millions of dollars in salaries to their employees. If you grab a pirated copy you have violated them. When you purchase it you have helped pay the salaries of their employees and you help fund future products.

I'm not sure that I even agree with copyright and patent laws - a lot of complex issue revolve around what should and should not be law with respect to this. There is the issue of whether patents hold back or encourage technology. It's my view that regardless of the law in this regard you still have a defacto guideline you can follow with respect to right and wrong and that is how it affects people - are you hurting someone even if they don't know it? Do you help yourself at the expense of someone else? And most of this is based on peoples RIGHTFUL expectations. As long as there are laws that govern what businesses can EXPECT, then going against them hurts people. If a law was passed that said it was no longer a crime to make copies of anything freely and give them away to friends or make web sites to distribute them, then businesses would have to change their business model accordingly and copying software would not be theft - it would not "hurt" people who had realistic and rightful expectations. If I decide to go into business selling software I could not reasonably claim that these people doing the copying were "hurting" me, because I would not longer have to right to expect anything differently.

Don't read too much into what I said. I didn't make any statements about ethics or what is right or even legal. I just said something about the word "theft".

I wan't even really addressing you except to disagree with your definition of "theft" and I even make a point of making it clear that I wasn't faulting you, but I can see that you took it personally anyway. So in this post I had to point out that the issue is very clear, at least in my opinion. Your statement is that "it's easy to see the difference" and I see no difference. If it's not theft grabbing a pirated copy then at least semantically it's not theft taking a copy right out of a retail store (other than the packaging costs and overheads of course.)

[Uri Blass]

Don,It is easy to see the difference.

If I had 200$ and now I do not have it then it is a different case.
In the case of piracy Microsoft never had the 200$ and never knew that they are going to get it.

If some people hack my bank account and transfer money from my account to their own account then it means that I do not have the money and it is clearly possible that I made previous decision based on the assumption that I have the money.

stealing from me 200$ that I had and preventing me to earn 200$ that I did not know earlier that I could earn are not the same thing.

[rbarreira]

Don,It is easy to see the difference.

If I had 200$ and now I do not have it then it is a different case.
In the case of piracy Microsoft never had the 200$ and never knew that they are going to get it.

If some people hack my bank account and transfer money from my account to their own account then it means that I do not have the money and it is clearly possible that I made previous decision based on the assumption that I have the money.

stealing from me 200$ that I had and preventing me to earn 200$ that I did not know earlier that I could earn are not the same thing.

There is another difference. Many of the people who pirate a piece of software would not have the ability or the willingness to buy it. So in many cases piracy really does not make any real difference (and it can make some positive differences such as increasing a product's popularity).

Sorry Don, but it's not as black and white as you want to believe... which is why it can't be classified as outright theft.