To be clear, I think both should be punished, but the large corp stealing ideas NEVER will.
The key value of autonomous vehicle IP is the ability to autonomously drive vehicles. Unless you're a patent troll.
In this case, the IP was never utilized in the marketplace against them, so they suffered no significant amount of damage.
It's reasonable that they sued to stop the use of their illegally copied IP. It's reasonable that he's punished. But it should be proportionate to the damage, which was minimal.
Autonomous vehicle IP is enormously more valuable if Google is the sole supplier. The value to Google is significantly less if Google plus multiple competitors have it.
Your claim basically devolves to no harm, no foul, and that's not how our legal system generally works. The attempted theft was of great value.
Obtaining autonomous vehicle IP is not equivalent to having autonomous vehicle product in the market.
As an example: Boeing could almost certainly publish all of the IP for the 787 jet and not risk spawning a single legitimate competitor. Very few organizations in the world could do anything with it.
What's truly valuable to a Google or Boeing is their financial, engineering, manufacturing, and operations resources. And other less tangible things.
Which is why severe punishment for illegally copying IP doesn't make a lot of sense. Yes, it should be illegal and should be stopped, but it's not that big a deal in most cases.
It just seems like a big deal because "tHey StolE tHe SeCreT cOdEs!" as if it's a James Bond movie.
It's a case of confusing the golden goose with the golden eggs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/waymos-uber-lawsuit-reveals-...
Think of it this way, people are currently SIP and going stir crazy with all the modern stuff.
It’s interesting that we accept electronic money as real, but IP always feels like a stretch.
To be sure, there are many hellholes in the US, but he's not going there.
I understand Google made many claims but apparently the evidence was only strong enough for this one minor article to make through the plea negotiations.
Now put yourself in this "fucking 40 year old"'s position and think about what it means for a corporation like Google to make these claims. Even if they're false you can't afford to fight them.
The guy was steamrolled.
In the criminal trial yes.
> I understand Google made many claims but apparently the evidence was only strong enough for this one minor article to make through the plea negotiations.
Google isn't (officially anyway) involved in this plea deal. It's between levandowski and the DA who is charging him with a crime. Google won 170 million in damages in the civil suit/arbitration.
For example, if you can get 12 years for shoplifting $40 [1] or life in prison for stealing $153 of video tapes [2] that stands in stark contrast to starting a company with stolen IP and selling it for $680M and getting 2.5 years.
Some people see this as part of a pattern where the justice system, run by upper-middle-class types, is unduly lenient on other upper-middle-class types, or unduly harsh on poor people. They would also point to the likes of Brock Turner who had gone to the same college as the judge sentencing him; and controversial presidential pardons [3] of friends and major donors.
It's not a completely hard-and-fast pattern, of course; Bernie Madoff got a 150 year sentence.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/17/walmart-shop... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r... [3] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/prob...
This white-collar punishment is going to hurt him badly. Is fairness best achieved by hurting him even more? Or is it best achieved by "only" hurting non-white-collar crimes with a punishment similar to this? It's important because the real question here is "are you complaining about his sentence, or the sentence of others?"
Personally I'm pro-reform. Would really like to see lighter sentences for a lot of things. So I'm not going to complain about this white-collar sentence at all. I'm going to complain about the harsh sentence for "people not like us."
What happens if someone commits a crime in a prison town? Double secret prison?
To demonstrate:
Insider Trading - Base Offense Level: 8
Monetary Loss | Points Added | Total Points | Total Sentence Length | Dollars/month
> $6,500 2 10 6-12 months $812
> $15,000 4 12 10-16 months $1,153
> $40,000 6 14 15-21 months $2,222
~~~~
> $250,000 12 20 33-41 months $6,756
> $550,000 14 22 41-51 months $11,957
> $1,500,000 16 24 51-63 months $26,315
> $3,500,000 18 26 63-78 months $49,296
> $9,500,000 20 28 78-97 months $109,195
> $25,000,000 22 30 97-121 months $229,358
> $65,000,000 24 32 121-151 months $477,941
>$150,000,000 26 34 151-188 months $887,573
>$250,000,000 28 36 188-235 months $1,182,033
>$550,000,000 30 38 235-293 months $2,083,333
https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2018-guidelines-manual/2018-...
Edit: This isn't meant to encourage anyone to commit a crime of any magnitude. Doing that would likely violate the terms of my probation.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/garrett-grimsley-north-carolina...
In this case, no one's life was the slightest bit injured. Uber is most likely too incompetent to be a real threat. Waymo has undoubtedly advanced far from the versions of everything that he copied illegally. It won't damage them at all. If anything, the lawsuit and criminal case were probably more damaging to their progress due to the distraction.
This is pretty similar to copying software or movies illegally. In almost all cases, there is no injured party. It's simply illegal by virtue of the powerful corporations demanding laws that they can use as a bludgeon.
Startups and other small companies don't get any of this "protection", but when someone copies code illegally from Google or Goldman Sachs, the FBI gets involved and makes them pay dearly. Prosecutors use the cases to make their bones.
I'm not suggesting that what this guy did was ethically or legally correct, just that it didn't actually harm any human life. It should probably be illegal but the punishment/fines should be capped at a very low level. The laws should primarily be designed to stop someone from continuing to use illegally copied data.
I don't necessarily disagree with all of your comment, but I feel like incompetence should not be a factor in determining punishment severity. Being unprofitable should not be a valid defense for illegal behavior.
Stealing the golden eggs is not the same as stealing the golden goose.