Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
I would call him in breach of contract and take him to a civil court. That's a lot different than having the cops show up and throw him in jail on a criminal charge.
There is a big perception difference between criminal theft and civil infringement. Using the wrong terms at best confuses the issue, and at worst is done intentionally in order to bring the nastier perceptions of criminal law into the discussion to create fear and intimidation.
I'm not arguing that downloading is right or wrong, I'm just saying that you do not call it "theft" for the same reasons that you don't call harassment "murder". They are completely different things.
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Sigh, you must be a lawyer. To begin with, I think it has been clear that I have been arguing the ethics of the situation. Common usage of the word theft is not limited to what the law formally defines as theft. Shoot lots of people would argue that taxes and the government exercising their eminant domain powers are forms of theft.
Ultimately, I bet the average person on the street would say that a boss who doesn't pay his employees what they earned was stealing from those employees. In any case, morally it would be the same as if the employer paid them their salary and then withdrew it from their bank accounts later.
Further, it is very different than your analogy; harassment and murder are on entirely different planes both legally and ethically. No normal person would equate the two as being equivalent.
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Bill