Quote:
Originally Posted by mklynds
I am certain that ignorance of a law does not make you exempt from the law.
|
No, but lack of intent does matter to some laws. Fraud, for example, is only fraud if the person knowingly scammed someone. Selling a shoddy product is not illegal, unless the seller has deliberately mislead the buyer. (There's sometimes grounds for expected knowledge claims... a doctor can't say "I accidentally prescribed the wrong medication.")
The law has plenty of spots where it distinguishes between accidental wrongdoing or association, and deliberate attempts to evade the law.
Oddly, I don't think copyright laws mark any difference between distribution with intent to convince people it's legit, and distribution that acknowledges it's not legal. The copyright infringement penalties seem solely based on specific damages, whether actual or statutory, with intentions of the infringer being irrelevant.
(I'll have to look into that--I wonder if there's an exception of some sort for "I thought that book was in the public domain?" That could certainly happen with various older works.)