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Old 11-03-2010, 11:09 AM   #16
ProfCrash
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Again, not quite. In your example you actually steal a tangible object (the owner no longer has it), in the first example you download a file (violating copyright, perhaps, but the owner still has it.)
Some how or another I think that a DA would disagree with you on this.

So if you steal the physical property, denying the store, publisher, and author proper payment for a physical good, it is theft. If you download something illegally over the internet, denying the store, publisher, and author proper payment for the data, it is not theft? The owner of the book (the author) still has a copy of his words written down when the book is shoplifted. You have not taken his only copy of the book.

The real difference is that you are more likely to be caught stealing from a store and punished (banned from the store potentially prosecuted) then you are when you steal over your computer.
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