[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Semantics is what the law is about. "Theft" is a matter of semantics. (It's not called "theft" when airport security takes someone's laptop, even though it's "taking someone's property without permission." The details of the situation, defined through the filter of legal semantics, tell you whether or not it's "theft.")

Apparently not. There seems to be a generalized mindset that because the Federal protections are so much broader than "merely" State statutes covering "mere" theft, that this means that copyright infringement doesn't equate to theft.

If it's "theft" when someone gives a friend a copy of an ebook (note: nobody's property is *missing* in that interaction, and the author has no idea it's occurring at all), why isn't it "theft" to borrow a phyiscal book from the same friend? In both cases, the author is out the price of a book.

Because, obviously, you can "give" a copy of an ebook to someone without depriving yourself of your own copy--you've made an illicit copy. When you lend a physical book to your friend, there's still only one copy. Both of you can't read or re-read the physical book at the same time; you're sharing it. You're not sharing the digital file, in the traditional sense of the word.

What makes the additional copy "theft" and the single copy "not theft?"

Nothing, if you're talking about a file that's been torrented both times. Not a THING.

Most of us don't define "theft" as "there's more to go around." It's not theft if I set up a free coffee stand next to a Starbuck's and convince their customers not to pay for coffee.

This discussion isn't getting anywhere sadly. It's like the introduction of the Dowling case as apodictic that infringement doesn't equate to theft. That's not what the Supreme Court said; if you read the actual decision--not the wikipedia summation, which omits a LOT--the Court said that they rendered their decision strictly (and narrowly) on the basis of whether or not the transgression could be prosecuted under interstate transportation of stolen goods statutes (Federal).

The whole point of Dowling, and what the Court said, is that the interstate laws were passed, originally, to give broader protections and prosecution capabilities in cases of theft, in light of the advent of the automobile, so that thieves couldn't take stolen property across state lines and escape punishment. HOWEVER, the Court went on to say that "... infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud...," and that the fact that Copyrights had Federal protection in the first place essentially meant that the additional prosecutorial powers granted for interstate transportation of stolen good were unnecessary.

The Court already stated that copyrights are, indeed, property; so that argument is rather out the window.

However, it's moot; those of you who infringe will continue to do so.