great example of how white collar crime does not get punished. “no more than 30 months” for a theft implicated at multi-billion dollar values. that’s even less with good behavior credit
I take a different lesson: when a large company is affected, the small guy gets up to 30 months. When a small-time engineer gets his idea stolen by a big company in a similar way, they have zero recourse.
To be clear, I think both should be punished, but the large corp stealing ideas NEVER will.
This wasn't "an idea" being stolen, it was years of work and documents, nearly 10GB of it. That's very different from a big company taking someone's idea and recreating something similar from scratch.
Claiming that exclusivity is they key value is ludicrous.
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.
Well, to nit a point slightly, his comp alone should indicate he was not a small-time engineer. He effectively had a bigger payout that most founders with a semi-successful startup exit.
Well, I would like to agree with you, but unfortunately only larger companies have the resource and willingness to actually build the necessary infrastructure to prove someone stealing an idea
To your point. He started the program. Not that there is no fault - it's just ironic - Google mad people are "stealing" from them and they made billions by stealing all our data... In the end Google ended up shutting down its main SDC rival's entire program, recuperating all their money including employee salary, and raising 2.5 billion. Not too shabby
Did you read the indictment and do you know what a plea deal is? Why do you think google is lying about the 14000 files he downloaded? That could easily be proven or disproven and everyone knows it. It’s obvious they just threw him a soft ball on probably the least incriminating file they could to just get some money back rather than dragging the trial on forever then sentencing him to 100 years. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t take all the CAD files and act in what is clearly bad faith. Yeah, I could see a 24 year old legitimately doing that “for personal reference” but he is fucking 40 years old
I do know what a plea is. Legally, this calendar is the only thing he stole.
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.
> I do know what a plea is. Legally, this calendar is the only thing he stole.
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.
foolfoolz is complaining that the sentence is light compared to non-white-collar crimes
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.
Yes, I get that... but there is an implicit "what should be fixed" attached to the complaint.
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."
I'm against this barbaric tradition of putting people in cages for whatever XYZ crimes. I think the isolation of the rest of the society from the criminals is essential but should be done in a much more humane way. For instance, prisons should be a place to learn and develop one's mind with libraries, documentaries, education and tools of creation but still making sure the person cannot contact the rest of the society. Prisoners should be making living to pay for such facilities by doing work. You might wonder what if this actually promotes more crimes but you can increase the lengths of sentences and exponentially growing lengths for repeated offenses. A way to think of prison is just another society with its own economy and rules with strict isolation but otherwise similar in most other respects. For example, a "prison town" may have cafes, restaurants, theaters etc with everything being run by this isolated community which is not allowed to be in contact with the rest. I know this is crazy and rather radical ideal but small cages and solitary confinement is inhuman beyond thought.
> For example, a "prison town" may have cafes, restaurants, theaters etc with everything being run by this isolated community which is not allowed to be in contact with the rest
What happens if someone commits a crime in a prison town? Double secret prison?
The lesson if anyone is paying attention that if you’re going to steal $1, better make it a million.... but slow down before you hit Madoff levels. There is a sweet spot north of a million; less than a few billion.
I'm not sure about seeing a chart of existing cases and illicit proceeds, but what is available is the United States Sentencing Guidelines §2B1.1. [0] The value amounts increase exponentially, while the points, which correspond to length of sentence, increase linearly. So, like the other poster said, go big. Take the base offense level for the crime, add the points in the chart for the dollar amount, and then reference the Sentencing Table in §5A [1]. Levandowski and other folks with no criminal history will be in column 1 of the chart. Keep in mind that this is only a guideline, and the judge is not bound by it. Let me know if you have any other questions!
I had time to read the US Sentencing Guidelines cover to cover during my period of incarceration. If you don't trust my numbers then feel free to check the USSG for yourself, they're taken directly from the sources that I listed. That article refers to me, but you'd learn more about who this commenter is by reading my comment history (or asking me directly, I'm right here) instead of only that news story.
Well, the username, maybe not the commenter. Cnat ask for a better authority in matters of escaping punishment for heinous crimes. Religion-based hate speech, terroristic threats and Conspiracy to commit religious-based terroristic mass murder got less punishment than stealing economic value from a top-10 richest organization in America.
The question in criminal cases should be: how many people's lives were hurt by the crime, and how severely?
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.
> Uber is most likely too incompetent to be a real threat
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.
Sure, agreed. The point there is just that copying IP isn't that meaningful if it can't be effectively utilized. Many parties have presumably copied Boeing and Airbus IP related to their jets, and yet none have effectively utilized it.
Stealing the golden eggs is not the same as stealing the golden goose.
To be clear, I think both should be punished, but the large corp stealing ideas NEVER will.