[Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia in trouble /yet/ again

[Phil Nash]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:36 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia in trouble /yet/ again


>> On 07/09/2013 08:37 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
>>> How is that not theft that we are facilitating?
>>
>> Because "theft", is to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of
>> it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the
>> thing or of his property or interest in it.
>>
>> In some jurisdiction, linking to sites that play fast and loose with
>> Copyright /may/, in certain circumstances, be facilitating copyright
>> infringement.  It certainly isn't "theft".
>>
>> (I am not saying the latter is okay -- but that calling copyright
>> infringement "theft" is inflammatory rhetoric and intellectually
>> dishonest, at best).
>>
>> -- Marc
>
> Interesting notion that plain talk is "inflammatory" and "dishonest." How
> is deliberate copyright infringement is not theft? Why are we the
> pirates' little helpers?
>
> Fred

I'm tired of having this argument in uk.legal, and I don't want to go 
through it all again here. The essence of theft is that property belonging 
to another is appropriated, i.e. the rights of the owner have been assumed 
by someone else. In the case of a copyright, however many illicit copies are 
made, the copyright remains intact and it would be illogical to say 
otherwise, because then there would come a number of copies beyond which the 
copyright would cease to exist, which is not the case. And that's without 
arguing the point of whether it is possible to form an intention to 
permanently deprive the owner of his copyright when doing so is in fact and 
in law impossible.