[LINK] Theft, copyright, larceny...

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

 On Wed Jun 27 13:46 , Craig Sanders <cas at taz.net.au> sent:

>On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 01:24:26PM +1000, Robin Stephens wrote:
>> > Hew Raymond Griffiths ran the piracy group Drink or Die from his
>> >home at Bateau Bay on the New South Wales central coast. He was
>> >extradited to the US earlier this year to face charges relating to
>> >the theft of nearly 60 million worth of software movies and music.
>>
>> This confuses me.
>>
>> Are they calling the act of reselling copyrighted materials theft?
>
>nope. as i understand it, the guy didn't sell anything. he was just a
>warez kiddie, distributing copied games etc for free.

A scenario:

Joe sells CDs and DVDs for which he gets $10 each (or whatever)

Bill copies one of Joe's CDs and gives it to Fred.

Bill has not stolen any information from Joe beacuse Joe still has the information and is not deprived of it.

However, Joe can be described as having lost the opportunity to sell information, not lost the information itself.

In this model, Bill has stolen something from Joe in exactly the same way as if he had stolen a CD.

To summarise, it's not the information that's gone, it's the opportunity.

I don't understand why this isn't called stealing.

Working out how much has been stolen is another matter, but something has gone that can't be given back.

-- 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au