On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:39:18 -0500, "impossible"
<> wrote:
>
>"Ted" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:02:21 -0500, "impossible"
>> <> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>"Ted" <> wrote in message
>>>news: ...
>>>> On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:17:39 -0500, "impossible"
>>>> <> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"Gordon" <> wrote in message
>>>>>news:...
>>>>>> On 2010-10-09, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <_zealand>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> One of the ironies of the whole ?intellectual property? circus is
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> those
>>>>>>> who thump their chests most loudly about ?respecting? it and not
>>>>>>> ?stealing?
>>>>>>> often turn out to be among the least willing to practise what they
>>>>>>> preach.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yep, the most conservative staes in the good old U S of A have the
>>>>>> highest
>>>>>> abortion rate. Applies to countries too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One sees faults in others one has ones self.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>So are you for or against theft of intellectual property?
>>>>
>>>> "Theft" is the wrong word.
>>>>
>>>Not at all. If you infringe on someone's intellectual property, you have
>>>taken away from that person the benefit of their exclusive right to
>>>dispose
>>> of that property as they see fit. In the case of copyrighted works that
>>> are
>>> distributed without the permission of the copyright holder (for example,
>>> music, videos, software distributed posted on unauthorized online sites),
>>> then the thievery is compounded by everyone who downloads the bootlegged
>>> copies.
>>>
>
>[Hmmm...deleting the parts of your previous posts that were crucial to your
>original argument isn't cool. Let's restore all of that here, along with the
>parts of my post that you deleted where I crush your arguiment. You
>wouldn't want to be mistaken for some kind of Larry D'Loserite sock puppet,
>would you?]
>
>>>> From Wikipedia ("Copyright infringement"):
>>>>
>>>> "Copyright owners frequently refer to copyright infringement as
>>>> "theft". In law copyright infringement does not refer to actual theft,
>>>> but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights
>>>> of the copyright owner without authorisation. Courts have
>>>> distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for
>>>> instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United
>>>> States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen
>>>> property and that "...interference with copyright does not easily
>>>> equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even
>>>> employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a
>>>> copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of
>>>> copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright owner
>>>> by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control,
>>>> physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the
>>>> copyright owner wholly deprive of using the copyrighted work or
>>>> exercising the exclusive rights owned.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That's Wikipedia for you -- one person's opinion, referencing a
>>> 35-year-old
>>> court ruling that pre-dates the (public) internet and has been
>>> subsequently
>>> rendered obsolete.
>>>
>>> See, for example the US No Electronic Theft Act of 1997, which makes it a
>>> federal crime to engage in copyright infringement, even where there is no
>>> monetary profit or other commercial gain from the infringement. Maximum
>>> penalties under this law are 5 years in prison and up to $250,000 in
>>> fines.
>>>
>>> http://www.copyright.gov/docs/2265_stat.html
>>>
>>> Or, if you prefer the Wikipedia summary:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act
>>>
>>
>
>[Done. You can continue now].
OK
>
>> They still retain the legal exclusive right to dispose of that
>> property though, even though the exclusive right has been violated in
>> the one instance. That's materially different from theft. For
>> "theft" to apply in the traditional sense, they would have had to lose
>> the actual monopoly itself.
>>
>
>When music/video/software pirates post copyrighted works on the internet,
>the copyright holders have lost their exclusive right to dispose of that
>property as they see fit.
They still have it, and they can still dispose of it. This is
different from theft, where the thieved-from lose altogether what is
taken.
> Their monopoly of distribution, if you will, has
>been stolen from them -- by thieves.
No. They still have the monopoly. It has been broken - they did not
get paid for the infringement - but they still hold the monopoly.
Another way of putting it is that with property like a car, say, you
can only get it thieved from you once. After the theft, you don't have
the car any more. But with copyright, you can be thieved from again
and again. The two concepts of "theft" are different, and need to
described by different words to prevent being confused for each other.
>
>> It's a different concept, and a different word or phrase, for example
>> "copyright infringement", should be used.
>
>Why?
I've said why at exhaustive length above.
> So the parents of cyber-thieves can feel better about the crimes
>committed by their offspring?
No. It's so we are clear about the distinction.
> It's no different than stealing any other
>property.
Yes it is.
> If something doesn't belong to you, you either get the permission
>of the owners to use it or you leave it alone.
The thing that doesn't belong to the infringer is the monopoly. The
infringer violates the monopoly; he does not "use" it. To "use" it,
he would need to impose the monopoly conditions on others. This is not
"theft" as it's usually understood.
> Why is this concept so
>difficult for you to grasp?
I don't agree that it is a single concept. My opinion is that either
you are confused, or that you are trying to confuse others.
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