2012-04-14, 04:39 AM
Stupid back button ate my reply. Read the court's decision if you're interested. It's actually a lot more narrow than you might think. Under one specific (old) law that wasn't written to involve code or intellectual property, the court is saying the accused was not guilty of theft. I don't even think it would be double jeopardy for him to be indicted on charges from a more relevant law, since he'd be tried for a different crime.
Although regarding the internal reasoning of this case, I think the espionage charge should've stuck. Wickard v filburn craps all over the idea that something being used internally isn't interstate commerce. I don't agree with it, but that's the precedent.
The reason why I wanted to post was to say how important this realm of legal jurisprudence is and will be. A lot of the major problems faced by the internet stem from weird or outright bad precedent/legislation regarding intellectual property. If we as people/courts/legislators can sort that out, things like patent trolling and file sharing lawsuits could be a thing of the past.
Pursuant to this case, should code be patented or copyrighted? I don't know the answer, but I can tell you preserving code as a trade secret contributed to Goldman effectively losing this case.
Although regarding the internal reasoning of this case, I think the espionage charge should've stuck. Wickard v filburn craps all over the idea that something being used internally isn't interstate commerce. I don't agree with it, but that's the precedent.
The reason why I wanted to post was to say how important this realm of legal jurisprudence is and will be. A lot of the major problems faced by the internet stem from weird or outright bad precedent/legislation regarding intellectual property. If we as people/courts/legislators can sort that out, things like patent trolling and file sharing lawsuits could be a thing of the past.
Pursuant to this case, should code be patented or copyrighted? I don't know the answer, but I can tell you preserving code as a trade secret contributed to Goldman effectively losing this case.