Wired ha dato notizia di una sentenza che ha ritenuto la sottrazione di codice informatico non assimilabile al furto, in ragione della natura “non fisica” del codice.

Former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who downloaded source code for the investment firm’s high-speed trading system from the company’s computers, was wrongly charged with theft of property because the code did not qualify as a physical object under a federal theft statute, according to a court opinion published Wednesday. “Because Aleynikov did not ‘assume physical control’ over anything when he took the source code, and because he did not thereby ‘deprive [Goldman] of its use,’ Aleynikov did not violate the [National Stolen Property Act],” the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its opinion.

Qui il resto dell’articolo.