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Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

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Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#111

Post by fatca »

eliteraspberrie wrote: post #64

It seems Goldman Sachs attempted to commandeer the criminal justice system to retaliate against a former employee, and succeeded in doing so. It is not in the jurisdiction of police to act as arbiters of employment disputes -- that is for the civil court system. Whatever the allegations against Mr. Aleynikov, this I am sure we can all agree on.

The fact that they initially sentenced him to 8 years in jail, has zero deterring effect. As far as I am concerned, it only strengthens our resolve to break through the politically controlled monopoly on the use of force.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#112

Post by fatca »

OldSchool wrote: post #40

This type of story underscores my Icarus-inspired philosophy in business: fly high but not so high that you become an obvious target or otherwise risk getting burned. I learned relatively early that above some level (that's not even all that high), you'll find that you're dealing primarily with people whose sole purpose in life seems to be to serve their love of money and quest for validation. They are like insects d…

This type of story in which they initially sentenced him to 8 years in jail, has zero deterring effect on me. As far as I am concerned, it only strengthens our libertarian resolve to break through the politically controlled monopoly on the use of force.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#113

Post by warfangle »

xerophtye wrote: post #110

Umm.... let me get this straight, GS is required to pay the legal fees because he was an employee at GS? So if the company sues one of its employees, it has to pay for both sides? Really? PS: If i remember correctly, hadn't Sergey resigned from GS by then? I thought he was just hanging around an extra week or two to train his successors.

It's actually fairly common throughout the western world that the loser of a civil suite must supply legal fees.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#114

Post by salemh »

axc123 wrote: post #84
smtddr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents owned a home and lived in USA for over 30 years... but they are, and will always be, Nigerian. Home is where the heart is. I wonder what Aleynikov would say if we asked him "Are you American or Russian? Or both?"

How does that make his ancestory relevant in this case to be quoted ?

It doesn't, the "Russian programmer" stuck out to me like a jibe as well. It isn't noteworthy, and strange they call it out so often.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#115

Post by ubernostrum »

beagle3 wrote: post #108
ubernostrum wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Registration is not required. Registering allows you to sue for more money than if you don't register, but any creative work is automatically protected by copyright law (including full rights to control and prevent reproduction/distribution) automatically as of the moment the work is first fixed into a "tangible form of expression".

Thanks. But wouldn't they still need to make a copy available e.g. In the court documents? That would definitely be an angle they would want to avoid

No, they are not required to make a full copy available to the court in order to enforce copyright.

The US Copyright Office has a FAQ document which explains what registration does:

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

A more detailed explanation is in this pamphlet:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#116

Post by gscott »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #9
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

If he gets convicted of a felony it is pretty certain he won't be able to work on high frequency trading systems that compete with GS, which is likely all that they want.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#117

Post by Amadou »

ubernostrum wrote: post #105
beagle3 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but if I understand correctly, to claim copyright infringement, they would have had to register the work with the library of congress, and essentially make it publicly viewable - which I assume they didn't want. Copyright in this kind of case is usable almost exclusively by GPL style licenses, where the code is already available.

Registration is not required. Registering allows you to sue for more money than if you don't register, but any creative work is automatically protected by copyright law (including full rights to control and prevent reproduction/distribution) automatically as of the moment the work is first fixed into a "tangible form of expression".

Registering allows you to sue for more money than if you don't register,

Maximum is $250,000 per infringement if it is registered (and possible jail time for 10 or more infringements). If it is not registered then liabilty is just (simplified version) the retail price of each work infringed.

So, without registering it and without ever pricing it for sale, it could be argued that the damages would be $0.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#118

Post by PhasmaFelis »

auctiontheory wrote: post #104
jamesjporter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story I read about it claimed the following: He had made changes/improvements to various FOSS projects he was using at Goldman that he wanted to submit as patches upstream but his bosses wouldn't let him. He figured that since he was leaving he might as well take the FOSS code he had modified with him so he could submit patches later. The legality of this maneuver is tenuous at best, as others in this thread have…

Okay. That's interesting. I guess it could be true. Or it could also be a very creative and barely plausible explanation that happens to fit the provable facts of the case. It certainly requires us to accept an astonishing degree of naïveté in an otherwise very smart guy.

> It certainly requires us to accept an astonishing degree of naïveté in an otherwise very smart guy.

You haven't met many programmers, have you?

(I'm speaking of myself as well as friends and associates, here.)

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#119

Post by ommunist »

downandout wrote: post #38
melling wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.

According to the original article, Goldman was actually violating the license terms of the open source software it had modified by not releasing it. Further, while you and I may have our opinions, a judge found Goldman's actions to be so egregious that he ordered them to pay the defense costs for someone accused of stealing from them. That is exceedingly rare, and wouldn't have happened if there were any doubts about…

Any Russian programmer consider any administrativelimitation stupid, amd has the most of the code carved in his wetware. GS and other bozos can try to sue you for keeping the code in your brain, since you obviously taking our brain home. Or do American programmistas leave their brain in the office to comply?

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#120

Post by beagle3 »

Amadou wrote: post #117
ubernostrum wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Registration is not required. Registering allows you to sue for more money than if you don't register, but any creative work is automatically protected by copyright law (including full rights to control and prevent reproduction/distribution) automatically as of the moment the work is first fixed into a "tangible form of expression".

Registering allows you to sue for more money than if you don't register, Maximum is $250,000 per infringement if it is registered (and possible jail time for 10 or more infringements). If it is not registered then liabilty is just (simplified version) the retail price of each work infringed. So, without registering it and without ever pricing it for sale, it could be argued that the damages would be $0.

And even if registering, he only made one copy, and $250,000 is kind of cheap for what such a thing may be worth....
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