Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
My argument is a bit more subtle - if the distributor's property can be impounded, it's because it's not really his property. It follows that no property interests can be transferred to the putative buyer.
It is analogous to a thief selling stolen property - the buyer can't acquire a property interest from the thief.
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But copyright infringement and stolen property are two completely different things. In a copyright case, there is no stolen property. The ownership of the item is not what is in question. If a seller photocopies a physical book, copyright law does not say the Publishing company whose rights were infringed owns the photocopies. The law is about whether or not the distributor was
authorized by the copyright holder to make/distribute copies, not ownership of the copies themselves. It's closer to being a contract/licensing dispute between the copyright holder and the distributor, not ownership of "stolen" property.