Aside on the legal versus common definition of "theft"

Posted Apr 28, 2025 8:13 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Debian debates AI models and the DFSG by NYKevin
Parent article: Debian debates AI models and the DFSG

Just about everyone agrees on the basic definition of "stealing" a physical object, and that it is (in general) a wrongful act, but theft has been a thing since antiquity. If you're going to lean on the ethical side of this instead of the legal side, you're quickly going to find that there is much less consensus on what should be considered right and wrong than you reasonably need to have this sort of discussion.

As an aside, and this only bolsters your point, I live in a jurisdiction (England and Wales) where plenty of things that are obviously theft when you look at them don't quite reach the legal bar. The requirements here for theft are that you appropriated property, that it belonged to someone else, that you appropriated it dishonestly, and that you intended to permanently deprive the owner of that property. So, for example, if I take your lawnmower at the beginning of summer to mow my lawn, with intent to return it to you when winter starts and it's too cold for grass to grow, I've not committed theft, in law.

We have had to introduce specific laws for cases like taking someone's car for a joyride without permission, refusing to return a credit to your bank account that was made in error, or leaving without paying when you owe payment on the spot, precisely because the legal definition of theft is too narrow to cover these cases, even though most of us would agree that they were "theft" in a colloquial sense.