[LINK] Theft, copyright, larceny... (was: In other news....)

[Sylvano]

Greetings all,

Who am I to dare speak, where lawyers fear to tread ;-)

Interestingly, I attended a seminar recently where a legal type described how in Australia we've had those recent "improvements" to our copyright laws to essentially accept the comon reality that people record TV programs to view later and so really shouldn't be considered criminals.  But, it may be the case that it is the case still that to record a program for later viewing, *while actually viewing* the program during recording process is technically a breach!  

I think Rosenburg is off the hook if we can grant him the claim that "theft is theft" is correct by virtue of being a tautology.

Larceny is a theft of property without necessarily distinguished physical and intellectual property per se, where as robbery and armed robbery (ie the gun) is a form of theft that needs to involve the threat or actual use of force and violence.  

And I can certainly imagine that it is valid to call something armed robbery where someone has a gun put to their head so as to be forced to make a copy of sensitive or valuable data for the perpetrator.

Copyright is a legal protection to the unauhorised copying of a work and so violating copyright to gain an unauthorised copy of a work is theft. 

Sylvano

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----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Chirgwin [mailto:rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]
Sent: 6/25/2007 1:59:34 PM
To: link at anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] In other news....

> Rick Welykochy wrote:
> > Robin Stephens wrote:
> >
> >> On 23/06/07, grove at zeta.org.au <grove at zeta.org.au> wrote:
> >>> http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/06/23/1959801.htm
> >>
> >> In the article: "US District Attorney Chuck Rosenburg has hailed the
> >> conviction, saying that whether committed with a gun or a keyboard,
> >> theft is theft."
> >>
> >> I think anyone who has had a gun pointed at their face would disagree.
> >
> > Rosenburg is off the mark. If what he says was technically correct,
> > there would not be two separate areas of law, one for larceny
> > (theft of physical property) and one for copyright (theft of
> > virtual property).
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Would Rosenburg feel the same under either circumstance? I strongly doubt
> > it. Continuing Robin's thought, in the case of being held up
> > at gun point, post-traumatic stress and attendant psychological damage
> > is a real and commonplace outcome. The same cannot be said for virtual
> > theft.
> 
> Rick,
> 
> Rosenburg isn't actually expressing "what is", he is describing "how we 
> would like it to be" from the point of view of a particular political 
> philosophy.
> 
> Right-wing thinkers the world over are beating this drum - the one which 
> says "intellectual property rights are the same as physical property 
> rights". The aim is to end up with judges who agree - to end up with 
> laws changed not by parliament, but essentially by a process of creating 
> a "new" community standard through loud enough noise.
> 
> I would, however, note that the "point of a gun" issue is not theft ... 
> that's why someone who uses a weapon to rob a person will confront a 
> different set of charges to someone who (say) commits a break-and-enter 
> without confronting or distressing the house-owner.
> 
> RC
> 
> RC
> 
> >
> >
> > cheers
> > rickw
> >
> >
> >
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