Re: Net piracy?

[jeffr@bmerha2a.bnr.ca (Jeffrey Robertson)]

In article <307v0u$m17@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu>,
James L Brookes <jamesb@ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote:
>In article <307cd2$4vb@crl4.crl.com>, David K. Leikam <dkl@crl.com> wrote:
>
>>  It's not theft. Theft has a definition, believe it or not. You can find 
>
>Ok, fine.  It's not theft.  You're going about this the wrong way, however.

Actually, I think _you_ are.  See below.

>Piracy is *still wrong*.  It is depriving an individual of just compensation.
>Legal definitions, by your own admission, are lagging far behind the technical
>achievements of our field.  You argue that the law tells us software piracy
>isn't theft; I'll argue that we need to redefine the term "theft" to include
>software piracy, in both legal and social contexts.

Fine.  I'll argue that it shouldn't be so defined.  Why?  Because piracy is
so totally different from theft as to make it absurd to compare the two.
You are not stealing anything; you are copying something.  You are using
something without someone's permission.  You are violating a copyright.

Consider the following admittedly silly example.  A wealthy man buys up every
Picasso in the world, which he keeps in a vault for his private viewing
enjoyment.  An angry art lover (after reading lots of James Bond novels)
breaks into the vault, and photographs all the pictures, which he then
keeps for himself, or maybe even shows a few friends.

By your argument, he should be charge with theft.  He won't be, of course.
Break and enter is the crime.  Tresspassing, too, but I doubt they'd bring
that up.  Our fan has not deprived the miser of a thing, except the
visceral knowledge that someone is able to look at Picassos beside
himself.  Sure, it might be snotty of the miser, but that's his privilige.
(Now, in the software case, he miser is selling admission to the vault, but
the principle remains the same.)

Redefining theft to suit personal beliefs or for convenience is not,
in my opinion, a useful way to address this problem.  Brand new laws must
be written, and I hope they will be soon.

Cheers,
-- 
-------------------------------------+----------------+-----------------
Jeffrey Robertson                    |  jeffr@bnr.ca  |      BNR, Ottawa
"I speak for myself, not BNR" - Me   +----------------+       (Meriline)
"Verbing weirds language" - Calvin                      OC-48 FiberWorld