[LINK] In other news....

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 03:51:41PM +1000, Stilgherrian wrote:
> On 25/6/07 1:32 PM, "Rick Welykochy" <rick at praxis.com.au> wrote:
> > Philosophically speaking, it is one thing to relieve another
> > person of their chattel at gunpoint. It is quite another to copy virtual
> > property without actually depriving anyone of anything using a keyboard.
> 
> While overall I agree that the crimes of theft and copyright infringement
> are in separate categories, the "without actually depriving anyone of
> anything using a keyboard" is a furphy.
> 
> If you make a copy of someone's copyrighted material without paying, you're
> depriving them of whatever profit they would have made had you acquired that
> copy according to the license they want you to follow.

equally, if you don't ever buy their copyrighted work (whether you
copy/use it or not), you are depriving them of the income they would
have had if you had bought it.

therefore, failure to consume is theft and should be punished by lengthy
gaol sentences. 

furthermore, there should be no distinction by the courts between wilful
failure to consume and incidental or ignorant failure.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>