[LINK] Theft, copyright, larceny...

[Stilgherrian]

On 27/6/07 3:06 PM, "Eric Scheid" <eric.scheid at ironclad.net.au> wrote:
> On 27/6/07 2:24 PM, "Bernard Robertson-Dunn" <brd at iimetro.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> 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 because 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.
>> 
> 
> Alternative scenario:
> 
> Joe is an artist and sells CDs etc of his performances. Bill is also an
> artist and also sells CDs etc of his own performances. Jane is hungering for
> an hour of entertainment to gift to her nana, and buys one of Bill's CDs
> from Bill. Since Jane only has $10 to spend, Joe has now lost the
> opportunity to make that same sale.

Except that in the original scenario, Fred still gets to listen to the
music, and Joe gets nothing in return.

In another email this afternoon, Craig Sanders supposes that the opportunity
is still there, because having "trialled" the music on the CD he obtained
via Bill, Fred can still buy the CD from Joe. However in the real world this
falls apart -- because in some / many / most / nearly all cases Fred (unless
he's a shareware geek, hardly a representative sample of humanity) will
think "I have the music, why do I need to pay money *now*?"

What is the name of the "crime" ("sin"? "naughtiness"?) of not paying for
shareware that you continue to use?

Stil


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