Talya wrote:
THe product is not entertainment. It is sensory perception, it is information, it is thought itself. It's nothing more, and nothing less.
As for it being theft; even wher it is illegal, the law disagrees. It is not theft. By dictionary definition, it is not theft.
As the USSC put it so bluntly in 1985 in Dowling vs. The United States:
Quote:
The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of [section] 2314. The section's language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
And nobody's disputing that, Talya.
However, the USSC quote you just provided does not rationalize infringement as a moral act.
It also does not unilaterally define it as a productive or profitable act for the copyright holder.
So you've successfully argued that A is not C. A is still wrong, and bad for the people who create and manage the dissemination of information as their livelihood.
Alternative distribution models, even ones that look very similar to A, may well be very profitable, especially in some circumstances. However, that does not change the fact that you are wrong to force A, which is not C (which is also wrong, and it might be argued
equally wrong), on the creator/owner of that information, nor does it rationalize your act of doing so.
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