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Is small scale copyright infringement really a crime in any of our countries?
People keep saying "theft", "crime" and "criminal" when I think they really should be saying "unauthorized copy", "offense" and "offender".
Theft usually requires the intent to permanently deprive someone of the object of the theft and that obviously isn't the case here. What ebook downloaders are doing is making a copy of the work without the permission of the copyright holder. I think in most countries, if this copying is small scale, the infringer is only liable for damages in a civil suit and therefore not a criminal.
Using words like crime and piracy have connotations to me that are completely out of proportion to the actual offense.
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