[LINK] In other news....

[Brendan Scott]

Stewart Fist wrote:
> Stil writes
>> I agree that it shouldn't be called "piracy" or "theft". But I think we need
>> a word that more strongly indicates that social rules have been broken than
>> the rather lame "copyright infringement".
> 
> 
> I'm quite happy with both "piracy" and "theft".  Legal documents don't
> decide how we use common terminology -- its the other way around.  Denial of
> this just throws us back on euphemisms and convoluted legalistic
> expressions.
> 
> Words change in meaning constantly and just because theft always involved
> material goods in the 1700s when the laws were being written, doesn't mean
> that it is still so limited.  There were no cars in the 1700s, but you can
> still steal a car (or do we have to say "unlawful utilisation of a motor
> vehicle?")

This is a non sequitur.  

If the legislature had passed laws specifically relating to motor vehicles then you would have to say unlawful utilitisation etc in respect of those laws.  You can/could steal a motor vehicle because of what it is.  You can't steal copyright, precisely because it is what it is (an incorporeal right vested in a person).  The best you can do is infringe it and when you do infringe it, no matter how much you infringe, that person still retains the copyright in full. 


> Both of these are good and useful words, which are clearly understood by
> everyone -- which is what language is all about.

The problem with this argument is that it purports to reflect reality, but is in fact in conflict with it.   

When someone illegally copies a song they do not describe themselves as having committed a theft.  Nor would someone do that when they forward or copy an email without the consent of the copyright owner.  Nor would the canonical man-on-the-Bondi-Tram consider either of them a theft. 

The problem with the theft wording is it is deliberately political and deliberately anti-factual in an attempt to justify a particular ideological position. 


Brendan