49 replies to this topic

[+M2Ys4U]

Ayepecks, on 18 January 2012 - 00:41, said:

Nice job selectively choosing which parts to argue. Kudos; I'm sure you have a future in politics.

Well, I'm coming at this from a British position where the High Court has stated that information per se cannot be stolen. I had been informed by a reliable lawyer in the US that the law was similar. I admit I'm wrong (something politicians should do more often to be honest...) in regard to trade secrets.

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Also, your cited source is irrelevant. It's a case that is of a different matter entirely. The intellectual property in question was not taken through a use of fraud. Fraudulently posing as a customer with no desire to modify or redistribute files and other forms of intellectual property is a matter that has yet to be addressed by the Supreme Court. The case you're listing is also in regards to a law that was specific in regards to physical property -- it was outlined as part of the law. So, no dice.

File sharing is fraud now?

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But, let's say you were right. Doesn't make intellectual property theft any less illegal. Why do you people not comprehend that fact?

I've never said that infringement wasn't unlawful, that much is obvious. I merely contest that it is not theft, and for good reason. The word theft is very emotive and presents completely the wrong image: that the original is no longer with the monopoly rights holder. Theft is a term that does not work in a world of abundance (as opposed to the scarcity of the physical, tangible world).

TEX4S, on 18 January 2012 - 05:17, said:

M2Ys4U -

Are you simply saying this doesnt fall into your personal definition of "theft" ? Arguing the semantics of the word ?

If its not theft, what do you call it when someone obtains an item (tangible or not) for which they do not have permission? (In this case, the permission to distribute is stolen) - The infringement is not the possession of intellectual property, is the distribution of said property that is illegal.

It's infringement. The violation of the monopoly right holders' exclusive right to (authorise the creation of a) copy.

Hardcore Til I Die, on 18 January 2012 - 07:38, said:

It's not actually theft by definition of the law, as you have to permanently deprive somebody of something for it to be classed as theft, but it is very closely related and still falls under the area of "dishonest offences."

Quite; I do not contest this. (well, I do not know if the legal system in the US is similar to the UK's with regard to the difference between "offence" and "actionable" c.f. criminal and civil law).



Semantics, legal definitions and the intentional conflation of emotive topics aside, even though copyright infringement is unlawful this does not mean that the Internet needs to be broken and censored to remedy. Infringement is, by and large, a market and business model failure rather than an inforcement failure.

[Ayepecks]

We already addressed the argument you're now attempting to utilize. Please read the entire thread. And you're still selectively choosing what to reply to by taking statements out of context and ignoring the actual citations.

[Growled]

There is too much money before the bills. They will eventually pass.

[TEX4S]

Growled, on 19 January 2012 - 04:00, said:

There is too much money before the bills. They will eventually pass.

Thats what Im afraid of. We might get 10,000,000 people to submit a ballet, or sign a petition. Any halfway decent polition would look at that and think "Wow, this is a really unpopular topic, If I want to get re-elected, I better pay attention"

But Lamar Smith and his cronies are thinking, "let em sign all the petitions they want - I dont care if Im re-elected ! the MPAA just put $200,000,000 in an account in the Caymans with my dummy corp as the payee."

[+KomaWeiß]

TEX4S, on 19 January 2012 - 04:11, said:

Thats what Im afraid of. We might get 10,000,000 people to submit a ballet, or sign a petition. Any halfway decent polition would look at that and think "Wow, this is a really unpopular topic, If I want to get re-elected, I better pay attention"

But Lamar Smith and his cronies are thinking, "let em sign all the petitions they want - I dont care if Im re-elected ! the MPAA just put $200,000,000 in an account in the Caymans with my dummy corp as the payee."

So true. There isn't crap we can do about it either. =\