tyguy101aa: This will all change once they find the higgs boson and electrons are legally given mass.

But will it be a traditional Latin mass, or simply include some Latin components for the sake of the observer?

Herbie555: seadoo2006: You got into a business selling something made up ... tough cookie ... either change your business or deal with it in another way (like civil court). Until then, STFU, and if you don't like it, step aside, I'm fairly positive some pizza-faced 14 year old could write that same code for your competitors on whatever hardware you're supplying.

Not sure what "something made up" is supposed to mean. We sell networking equipment that complies with a particular standard. My company helped to develop the standard over a period of about 10 years. Literally hundreds of engineers from many companies involved. We (a team of about 20) then wrote a FARKTON of code to do some quite complicated signal processing and some less-complicated network handling.

We've made a pretty substantial investment in both developing the standard and creating our own product. Then some dipshiat asian ODM comes along and rips off the hardware layout and directly boosts our firmware, and a US court can't decide the value of our losses due to the software piracy.

Let me help with that... Your "value"... $0.00
If people valued your product so much, they wouldn't buy a cheap Asian knockoff instead.

And no, I don't believe that is right. But I can walk into any store and point to over thousands of products that have been copied by cheap Asian knockoffs.

You want a solution? Not sure there are that many, but an easy one for the Microsoft's of the world is the house the software they sell *in-house* the way Google and Apple do it. Google docs? How about buy an iPhone without paying for the OS?

Why we aren't seeing more dumb terminals being sold and more software run exclusively off the web, I'm not sure. If *I* were in charge of Microsoft Office, I'd keep the CD version the same cost, and give a reduced cost for subscribing to a web version of our software updated regularly with new features. -Start leasing it like the folks of World of Warcraft. -As long as your content is good, subscribers will keep coming back.

How would that work with hardware? I don't know, but what about introducing code that actually slows down the device when activated? How about if you haven't upgraded your code monthly, the switches slow down to a crawl until you download software from a website *you* control?

Or alternatively, put an expiration code on the chip that keeps it from working without a long encrypted key being downloaded monthly (which of course you charge for).

Or just do what so many other companies do and instead of making the hardware (and firmware) your primary money maker, just make training and add-ons your money maker. If add on support costs were your money maker, it wouldn't matter *who* copied you as you would *always* be able to provide better support for your product than they could.

seadoo2006: But, you'd be damned silly if you think Canon or Nikon don't have value assigned to their firmware internally for JUST the reason you went through.

Internally isn't good enough (as we found out). We have an internal value for our firmware. We know exactly how much the firmware "costs" as a part of the bill-of-materials. We even have a precedent for EXTERNAL value for our firmware, as we sometimes have charged certain pain-in-the-ass customers for firmware upgrades when they want something special. But the court found that because IN THIS CASE we didn't charge for the firmware, then we suffered no loss. Canon and Nikon have NEVER charged for a firmware upgrade, so far as I know.

lordargent: Also, it's not impossible to steal computer code.

1) Take all of the drives it's stored on, thus depriving the original owner of use.

2) Copy all of the code, then delete it from the original storage, thus depriving the original owner of use.

No, that's copyright infringement followed by vandalism.

Subby here,

While I think that producers of all intellectual property need to be protected from other commercial entities, such as Herbie555's case or say a movie studio or author. I don't think that individuals should be punished for non-commercial usage of intellectual property if they obtained it through copying. And if they are, it should be a civil suit for lost profits from that individual, not some BS about how they might have distributed it 50k times.

/yarrrr

Humean_Nature: GAT_00: Yeah, this is what I meant. If you steal it, break no other laws, and then at no point do you release it or try to profit from it, that's legal now?

Pretty much. It's like memorizing a book and then never ever writing it down and trying to pass it off as your own work. You've made a copy that isn't authorized, but you'll never show it to anyone or try to make money off of it. Where's the plagiarism?

Schrodinger say "What?"

Herbie555: Well played.

I acknowledge that I should have said "The firmware won't take pictures without the hardware". Or in my case, "the firmware won't decode an encoded signal, packetize and route said packets, etc. etc." without the hardware.

In our case, they also violated the copyright on the hardware schematic.

Then sue them for the hardware. If the cost of developing the firmware is already accounted for in the price of the hardware, then the damages you get from from the hardware infringement should cover the theoretical losses from the firmware being copied.

No one is justifying anything. Everyone in this thread who tries to put forth this argument is misinformed. This didn't make it "okay" to go out and copy code. It just means it doesn't fall under the legal definition of theft.

This is a VERY important ruling. Think of it this way:

John goes into Macy's and shoplifts a t-shirt. The police arrest him and charge him with armed robbery. John gets acquitted of the robbery because what he did does not fall under the definition of armed robbery.

This really is no different. Attempting to charge someone with theft when they haven't met the legal definition of theft is wrong, plain and simple. Not only does this say once and for all, "no, this is not theft in the legal sense", it also says "no, we will not charge people for crimes they didn't technically commit"

Again, this doesn't make it so everyone can suddenly go out and pirate everything they want. The main disincentive to piracy has always been lawsuits, not jail time. Clearly, if we take the war on drugs as an example jail time isn't a disincentive anyhow. It baffles me how anyone in the US could support throwing even more people in jail when they are filled with non-violent "criminals" who come out less able to integrate into society than when they went in.

seadoo2006: pxsteel: If you take something that is not yours or you do not have permission from the owner to take - it is called stealing - why is this so hard to understand?

Because you didn't TAKE anything. Try reading the difference between 'take' and 'copy' in the dictionary, please.

[27.media.tumblr.com image 500x420]

When I take a shower, the shower is still there when I am done, and as many people as want to, can still take a shower. Should I say "Im going to go copy a shower" ?

Girion47: Subby here,

While I think that producers of all intellectual property need to be protected from other commercial entities, such as Herbie555's case or say a movie studio or author. I don't think that individuals should be punished for non-commercial usage of intellectual property if they obtained it through copying. And if they are, it should be a civil suit for lost profits from that individual, not some BS about how they might have distributed it 50k times.

/yarrrr

Agreed. I'm the first person to scoff when the MPAA or RIAA makes these demands for HUGE damages against individual infringers. If someone is convicted, the "loss" part of the judgement should be the real street price of the song, or movie, or whatever. I'll leave it to the policy wonks to decide if there should be additional disincentive in the form of an additional fine or penalty, but even that should "scale" with the "crime".

Thank you! And, Thank you. I've been 'stealing' code for decades. You know why? You can't steal it, it's out there. IT'S CALLED FU*KING CODE LIBRARIES!!!! Take it, use it, get a job. Thank you, and thank you very much. If you wrote it and it's on the 'net, it's mine. Don't like that? Don't put it on the intertubes.

Herbie555: seadoo2006: You got into a business selling something made up ... tough cookie ... either change your business or deal with it in another way (like civil court). Until then, STFU, and if you don't like it, step aside, I'm fairly positive some pizza-faced 14 year old could write that same code for your competitors on whatever hardware you're supplying.

Not sure what "something made up" is supposed to mean. We sell networking equipment that complies with a particular standard. My company helped to develop the standard over a period of about 10 years. Literally hundreds of engineers from many companies involved. We (a team of about 20) then wrote a FARKTON of code to do some quite complicated signal processing and some less-complicated network handling.

We've made a pretty substantial investment in both developing the standard and creating our own product. Then some dipshiat asian ODM comes along and rips off the hardware layout and directly boosts our firmware, and a US court can't decide the value of our losses due to the software piracy.

Wow. You and I seem to do the same thing. The firmware I write is for BACnet products, what about you?

On a related note, we also ran into the exact same thing as you. A Korean company got their hands on some of our hardware copied the ROM and the PCB and flooded the asian market. It sucked.

Obligatory?

ISO15693: seadoo2006: pxsteel: If you take something that is not yours or you do not have permission from the owner to take - it is called stealing - why is this so hard to understand?

Because you didn't TAKE anything. Try reading the difference between 'take' and 'copy' in the dictionary, please.

[27.media.tumblr.com image 500x420]

When I take a shower, the shower is still there when I am done, and as many people as want to, can still take a shower. Should I say "Im going to go copy a shower" ?

I can only assume that would involve you standing above a tub and pissing on people...

Bad_Seed: Then sue them for the hardware. If the cost of developing the firmware is already accounted for in the price of the hardware, then the damages you get from from the hardware infringement should cover the theoretical losses from the firmware being copied.

We have. It's taking longer to prove that their layout was "copied" and not "reverse engineered". We'll get there one way or the other, but in all likelihood, right about the time we "win", I'm betting we'll find out that the ODM in question has nothing left to take.

Once our common customers figured out what had been done, they stopped buying from the ODM. Although sadly not for reasons of good conduct - the customers figured out they were getting no meaningful tech support from a company that hadn't written a single line of code. That's one of the reasons our lost sales are so easy to calculate - we know exactly how many units were sold before the customers got wise. Note that they didn't pull the units from their plants, though. ;-)

DrippinBalls: Thank you! And, Thank you. I've been 'stealing' code for decades. You know why? You can't steal it, it's out there. IT'S CALLED FU*KING CODE LIBRARIES!!!! Take it, use it, get a job. Thank you, and thank you very much. If you wrote it and it's on the 'net, it's mine. Don't like that? Don't put it on the intertubes.

I'm going to say self-described hacker types with no respect for Intellectual Property help no one (if you're limiting this to open source software then never mind :D ).

Leeds: Wow. You and I seem to do the same thing. The firmware I write is for BACnet products, what about you?

DOCSIS CPEs and CMTSs

toraque: Pirating isn't really stealing, it's more like sneaking into a club without paying the cover charge. Sure, one or two people won't hurt, but if too many people duck under the rope the club goes broke and closes.

Funny thing- although the club has been biatching about people who sneak in for decades, they seem to be making record profits. Hmm.

mauricecano: Eddie Adams from Torrance:

Which is why I'm planning to copyright 1 and 0. Then every piece of software will be mine..all mine!!!

Too late, its public domain.

Ironically, the idea is copyrighted by the Onion.

Link (new window)

Making mauricecano a copyright infringer, subject to the full weight of the law.

(Sorry if this has already been pointed out. You expect me to read Boobiess? I'm with Scalia on this one.)

Herbie555: Leeds: Wow. You and I seem to do the same thing. The firmware I write is for BACnet products, what about you?

DOCSIS CPEs and CMTSs

Vixs, gotcha.

Good to see fellow firmware folk on here. :-)

Sticky Hands: Herbie555: In our case, they also violated the copyright on the hardware schematic.

Did they copy your schematic directly or did they reverse engineer it?

As best we can tell, copied directly. Not only schematic, but possibly layout. As far as I've been told, we haven't determined if they got hold of an electronic copy of a layout and reproduced it, or were just really fastidious about cloning the design. There ARE differences between their board and ours. (Amusingly, differences which make their RF performance measurably worse), and they're arguing that the differences are proof of "parallel design", but there some other things that look to have been copied verbatim that serve no functional purpose. Stuff in the power section that's been re-used from a dozen previous models over the last ten years, so it's kind of frankenstein-y, but we leave it alone because it works and we've never taken the time to clean it up.

bodangly: No one is justifying anything. Everyone in this thread who tries to put forth this argument is misinformed. This didn't make it "okay" to go out and copy code. It just means it doesn't fall under the legal definition of theft.

This is a VERY important ruling. Think of it this way:

John goes into Macy's and shoplifts a t-shirt. The police arrest him and charge him with armed robbery. John gets acquitted of the robbery because what he did does not fall under the definition of armed robbery.

This really is no different. Attempting to charge someone with theft when they haven't met the legal definition of theft is wrong, plain and simple. Not only does this say once and for all, "no, this is not theft in the legal sense", it also says "no, we will not charge people for crimes they didn't technically commit"

Again, this doesn't make it so everyone can suddenly go out and pirate everything they want. The main disincentive to piracy has always been lawsuits, not jail time. Clearly, if we take the war on drugs as an example jail time isn't a disincentive anyhow. It baffles me how anyone in the US could support throwing even more people in jail when they are filled with non-violent "criminals" who come out less able to integrate into society than when they went in.

How about. keep your hands off other people's stuff and you don't have to worry about it. Splitting hairs to win a case is what this is. Taking, copying, whatever. You know it's wrong, don't do it.

Oblig (new window)

fredklein: toraque: Pirating isn't really stealing, it's more like sneaking into a club without paying the cover charge. Sure, one or two people won't hurt, but if too many people duck under the rope the club goes broke and closes.

Funny thing- although the club has been biatching about people who sneak in for decades, they seem to be making record profits. Hmm.

Don't forget about the people that wouldn't pay the cover charge and go do something else if they couldn't sneak into the club. And the people who sneak in the club to see if it is any good and then pay later if it is good. And the people who sneak in for the thrill of sneaking in and go right back out without doing anything.

"Court rules it is impossible to steal computer code".

hmm...

Challenge Accepted.

Don't worry, they'll just try and weasel this one in some other way, like they're doing with SOPA, I mean, CISPA.

/Honestly
//SOPA, PIPA, CISPA
///Can we stop using cutesy acronyms for heinous laws? Give it a serious name
///Like Proposal 32-B, or something

Don't Troll Me Bro!: I'm no lawyer, but after reading that it seems that they are denying the existence of IP.

No, actually, it's the opposite... They're saying that source code is intellectual property, not tangible property. You can't physically pick it up, shove it in your pocket, and sneak out, thus stealing it... You can only infringe exclusive rights related to it.

The key quote is:
The NSPA makes it a crime to "transport[], transmit[],
3 or transfer[] in interstate or foreign commerce any goods,
4 wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of
5 $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen,
6 converted or taken by fraud." 18 U.S.C. § 2314. The
7 statute does not define the terms "goods," "wares," or
8 "merchandise." We have held that they provide "a general
9 and comprehensive designation of such personal property or
10 chattels as are ordinarily a subject of commerce." In re
11 Vericker, 446 F.2d 244, 248 (2d Cir. 1971) (Friendly, C.J.)
12 (quoting United States v. Seagraves, 265 F.2d 876, 880 (3d
13 Cir. 1959)).

and later
"To be sure, where no tangible objects were
22 ever taken or transported, a court would be hard pressed to13
1 conclude that 'goods' had been stolen and transported within
2 the meaning of 2314." Id.

This goes back to the old "theft vs. copyright infringement" argument that everyone likes to have in these threads (and they're having here)... the judges were right - copyright infringement, and even theft of trade secrets, is not the same as stealing a car. Intellectual property is intangible, so laws that require carrying away of a tangible good aren't going to apply.
That doesn't mean that IP goes away... rather, it means that IP statutes apply to IP, and that statutes having to do with theft of goods don't.

... for now. As the court notes, criminal law is purely a creature of statute, and Congress could certainly amend the NSPA to say "for the purpose of this chapter, 'goods' includes intellectual property" or something, not that that would be a great idea. But there are wealthy lobbyists who might be interested in such an amendment.

Don't Troll Me Bro!: I'm no lawyer, but after reading that it seems that they are denying the existence of IP.

No, copyright is just as valid as it was before the decision, and source code is still copyrighted at the moment of fixation. If you steal someone's source code, you can still be sued for copyright infringement, and in certain specific cases you can face criminal charges for giving away someone's source code (under the No Electronic Theft act.)

This ruling simply states that code is not physical property, like a chair. It is instead copyrighted material, like anything else you type into a text editor.

This is a horrible ruling and will likely be overturned if appealed. If you link to the actual case, what happened is the guy was quitting Goldman and going to work for a competitor who was going to pay him $1 million per year to build a new trading system for them and the project was only supposed to take six months vs. the typical multi-year development cycle for similar products. Here are the stipulated facts of what he did:

"At approximately 5:20 p.m., just before his going-away party,
10 Aleynikov encrypted and uploaded to a server in Germany more
11 than 500,000 lines of source code for Goldman's HFT system,
12 including code for a substantial part of the infrastructure,
13 and some of the algorithms and market data connectivity
14 programs."

The judge ruled that the stolen property act did not apply given previous precedent but also ruled that the Electronic Espionage Act, which seems to have been specifically created to address this type of crime, did not apply because of a wording issue. The wording is question is:

"Whoever, with intent to
20 convert a trade secret, that is related to or included in a
21 product that is produced for or placed in interstate or
22 foreign commerce, to the economic benefit of anyone other
1 than the owner thereof, and intending or knowing that the
2 offense will, injure any owner of that trade secret,
3 knowingly . . . without authorization . . . downloads,
4 uploads, . . . transmits, . . . or conveys such information"
5 is guilty of a federal offense, and may be imprisoned for up
6 to 10 years.

The judge has the semi-bogus argument in his opinion that since something can't be "placed in" commerce without having been "produced for" commerce, then the wording is vague and can't be enforced. Any rational reading of the rule recognizes that the "or" is related to the fact that something can be "produced for" but not "placed in" commerce. I hope the government appeals this since it will be overturned.

RobSeace: You didn't validate his position, but his use of the word "take"... You said courts disagreed with him... They don't... It's just he didn't really mean what he actually said! By saying the courts disagreed with what he just said, you were effectively saying that "taking" == "copying", just as he clearly meant to imply... Is this really that hard to understand?

/*sigh* I can't even agree with someone without getting into a damn argument over it!

Pedantry is for courts. We all know exactly what he was saying even if he wasn't using the correct words. Cool your jets.

birchman: oakleym82: Don't Troll Me Bro!: I'm no lawyer, but after reading that it seems that they are denying the existence of IP.

THIS!

I'm no piracy nazi, in fact quite the opposite, but this is IP law. Would the ruling be any different if he printed it out?

Is this simply a criminal vs civil thing?

I'm confused.

All they're saying is that you can't go to jail for theft. You could still go to jail for other charges or be sued depending on what you did.

Not even... You could still go jail for criminal copyright infringement.

Basically, if you were to sneak into Ford's plant and take a bunch of pictures of their secret designs for next year and then go sell them to GM, you could be charged with theft of trade secrets, criminal copyright infringement, trespass, etc.
... you couldn't be charged with grand theft auto, however.

beefoe: The judge ruled that the stolen property act did not apply given previous precedent but also ruled that the Electronic Espionage Act, which seems to have been specifically created to address this type of crime, did not apply because of a wording issue. The wording is question is:

"Whoever, with intent to
20 convert a trade secret, that is related to or included in a
21 product that is produced for or placed in interstate or
22 foreign commerce, to the economic benefit of anyone other
1 than the owner thereof, and intending or knowing that the
2 offense will, injure any owner of that trade secret,
3 knowingly . . . without authorization . . . downloads,
4 uploads, . . . transmits, . . . or conveys such information"
5 is guilty of a federal offense, and may be imprisoned for up
6 to 10 years.

The judge has the semi-bogus argument in his opinion that since something can't be "placed in" commerce without having been "produced for" commerce, then the wording is vague and can't be enforced. Any rational reading of the rule recognizes that the "or" is related to the fact that something can be "produced for" but not "placed in" commerce. I hope the government appeals this since it will be overturned.

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation... Actually, the judge noted that a different section of the EEA would apply, but for some reason, Aleynikov wasn't charged with that section:
The EEA contains two operative provisions. The first
8 section (18 U.S.C. § 1831(a)), which is not charged in the
9 indictment, applies to foreign espionage and is expressed
10 broadly: "Whoever, intending or knowing that the offense
11 will benefit any foreign government, foreign
12 instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly . . . without
13 authorization . . . downloads, uploads, . . . transmits,
14 . . . or conveys a trade secret" is guilty of a federal
15 offense, and may be imprisoned for up to 15 years. 18
16 U.S.C. § 1831(a).
17 Aleynikov, however, was charged with violating 18
18 U.S.C. § 1832...

Basically, I think the prosecutor screwed up there.

And to think that just six months ago the government was threatening to destroy the internet with SOPA. What a country!

This is too far down the page for anyone to pay attention, but...

I think that to copyright a computer program, you should be required to publicly provide the commented, uncompiled source code in a recognizable, non-obfuscated computer language.

Not only would it make it easier to prove infringement by those profiting from theft -- it's easier to compare C++ (or whatever) source code than binary gobbledygook -- it would push forward software development, and help prevent software from dying as an orphan.

And hey, if you want to keep your code an in-house trade secret, without copyright protection, feel free.

/hot

beefoe: the guy was quitting Goldman and going to work for a competitor who was going to pay him $1 million per year to build a new trading system for them and the project was only supposed to take six months vs. the typical multi-year development cycle for similar products.

this is what happens when a company man runs between the shadows of the mega-corps:



/ his legal troubles are far from over.

dahmers love zombie

I think this is an awful decision. Removing the threat of pound-me-in-the-ass Federal prison from the equation will doom IP as we know it.

I mean, remember when there was music on the radio in the '70s, and cassette tapes came out, and every music company went bankrupt? And there's been no music published since then because of the inability to profit?

And movies -- hell, I remember those from the Seventies, but since Betamax came out, there was no way you could make a movie that made money, and all of the studios folded. I sure wish I could see something in a, what was it called, "cinema"?

Wow, and I can't even imagine what the software industry would have been like. We might even have had home computers by this point, and games you could play on them. This law was a bright spot which might have even allowed for the existence and growth of "software companies", but now I imagine the adding machine factories are redoubling their workforces, seeing as there will be no other option for the foreseeable future.

Further proof of your point
ted.com