[comp.org.eff.talk] Busted for "possession"

howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) (09/18/90)

In the discussion of the Rose case, several people have glibly tossed
off the phrase "possession of proprietary source code" in contexts that
make it sound like a terrible crime.  Just out of curiousity, what law
is actually being broken here?  Is it some perversion of copyright law,
an implied contract, or what?

I can see nailing someone to the wall if they try to take any kind of
economic advantage of proprietary information.  What is there about
mere possession, however, to make it worth prosecuting?  Wouldn't it
be better if these cases were handled through civil law at the expense
of the company which had been wronged?  The company would then presumably
have an economic interest in only persuing those cases where actual
loss of revenue was at stake.  Government prosecuters, on the other hand,
may only be motivated by the desire to convict at any cost.  I realize
that an organization like ATT might still pursue a case just to "put the
fear of God into the hackers", but this might still be a step in the
right direction.

--
Louis Howell

  "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit.  "A major
navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet
and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate
calculations.  Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."

mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin) (09/18/90)

In article <1990Sep17.105918@bert.llnl.gov> howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes:

>I can see nailing someone to the wall if they try to take any kind of
>economic advantage of proprietary information.  What is there about
>mere possession, however, to make it worth prosecuting?

First of all, it seems that Rose WAS using the Unix source code.

What distinguishes his case from what might happen to me if I were
to copy some Unix source onto my system is that I can't have intended
to use it (I'm not a Unix programmer, and I don't give code of any
sort to anybody else).

What makes Rose's case particularly important is that the feds have
apparently decided to drop a major-league prosecution on Rose for
software piracy. Yet software piracy is a realm in which, I dare say,
very few people in the computer community have totally clean hands.
As John Perry Barlow has noted, if they start prosecuting software 
piracy to the this extent, the effort would dwarf that of the War
on Drugs.

It seems fairly certain that the case against Rose is for show--it's 
designed to justify the immense energy and resources poured into
Operation Sun Devil.

>  Wouldn't it
>be better if these cases were handled through civil law at the expense
>of the company which had been wronged?

Yes, in most cases involving software piracy in a business setting, where
the defendants can afford fines that would repay the cost of civil
action. Probably not in the instances of individual software piracy.


--Mike




Mike Godwin, UT Law School  |"If the doors of perception were cleansed
mnemonic@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu | every thing would appear to man as it is,
(512) 346-4190              | infinite."
                            |                 --Blake

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) (09/18/90)

In article <1990Sep17.105918@bert.llnl.gov> howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) writes:
> In the discussion of the Rose case, several people have glibly tossed
> off the phrase "possession of proprietary source code" in contexts that
> make it sound like a terrible crime.  Just out of curiousity, what law
> is actually being broken here?  Is it some perversion of copyright law,
> an implied contract, or what?

Usually, copyright law.

As an example, an alleged Princeton graduate student allegedly broke
into an NYU computer a couple of years ago, using the sendmail debug
mode bug. He (allegedly) copied lots of proprietary AT&T, Berkeley, and
NYU source code. Computer trespass aside, he (allegedly) violated
copyright.

In contrast, if NYU had mailed him the sources, NYU would be violating
its contracts (licenses) with AT&T and Berkeley, as well as copyright.
Breach of contract isn't too serious, though.

> Wouldn't it
> be better if these cases were handled through civil law at the expense
> of the company which had been wronged?

You're right that it depends on the scale. The government should stick
its nose into prosecuting someone like Markus Hess; it's just a waste of
time when a prankster makes an illegal copy of Chutes & Ladders for his
IBM PC. I have no idea where the (alleged) Princeton case might fall on
this scale.

---Dan