[LINK] Theft, copyright, larceny...

[Brendan Scott]

Stewart Fist wrote:
> Craig wrote:
>> nope. as i understand it, the guy didn't sell anything. he was just a
>> warez kiddie, distributing copied games etc for free.
> 
> So if I rob a bank and then distribute the cash to other people in Sherwood
> Forest, like Robin Hood, I haven't been guilty of theft.
> 
> The law doesn't apply to me.
> 
>> what they're trying to do is establish the newspeak that "copyright
>> infringement" (of any kind) is "theft".
> 
> The "(of any kind)" sort of slipped in there Craig. Suggesting home taping
> of TV programs, perhaps?
> 
> No.  It applies to people who rip off someone else's property to the tune of
> $60 million.  And I don't know, or care, whether that is the retail value,
> the whole sale value, the cost of producing the software, or the cost of
> making the disks.  

Can you point us to the accounts which list the value of a person's copyright infringed as a loss?  I assume you can't because the accountants and tax pple don't let these amounts be listed as a loss.  Perhaps that's because they don't think it is a loss. 

> Until someone convinces me that the real value was a trivial 60 cents,
> rather the $60 million dollars claimed (ie +/- $59.99999 million) then it is
> theft.

The argument is not about the quantum. If it is theft it is theft even if the thing stolen is only worth $0.01 or even less. 

> What figure do you put on it?  And on what basis?
> 
>> they are being assisted in this
>> endeavour by governments, pro-business lobby groups, and journalists (both
>> willing corporate shills and the semantically-lazy).
> 
> 
> Do you people honestly believe that an Australian court allowed him to be
> extradited to the USA on frivolous grounds for a trivial offense ?
> 
> Or that the Americans put years of effort into getting him extradited, when
> they have a 300 million home video-tapers of their own they could prosecute?
> 
> Or that an American court then sentenced him to a long term in gaol on
> similar frivolous grounds for a trivial offense ?
> 
> Then that governments, pro-business lobbygroups, journalists, willing
> corporate shills and semantically-lazy people (presumably meaning me) then
> conspired to beat this all up into a story that appeared world-wide in the
> newspapers ?

This is rather beside the point.  He may be a very naughty person and deserve to be punished, but that doesn't, by itself at least, make him a thief. 

B