FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 15, 2007 17:27 UTC (Thu) by alext (guest, #7589)
In reply to: FYI on "pirates" and "stealing" by iabervon
Parent article: Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews)

No it is not stolen at least in a legal sense. It is a smear of terms probably with the (original) intent of big media companies to simplify things for convicting people in the minds of others.

To steal is an act of theft and that is defined as taking something with the intention to permanently deprive. Taking a digital copy does not do that. Which is why people like me and I suppose other "precisionists" (tossers might call them pedants) don't like the term property as you don't have possession of any property only a license (the terms of which are dependent upon amongst other things location) granted to you ultimately by the people including usually the person accused of infringing.

But the concept of a license and infringement is a lot more sophisticated for your average person to come to grips with. Hence returning to the probably cause being media giants wanting to make the obtaining of convictions easier. As theft sounds a whole lot worse than "infringement" and it is a whole lot easier to understand.

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