Quote:
Originally Posted by rwsimon
Suppose you set up a little printing press in your basement and churned out a few hundred copies of the paperback and just started giving them away. Clearly, you would be doing something illegal and immoral.
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Clearly? Interesting.
Let's say you're from the future. In addition to a nifty spandex unitard, you also have a replicator! It can produce any physical object once it knows the molecular "pattern". You see some poor, hungry people in the street. Appalled, you buy an apple from the fruit stand, duplicate its pattern, and begin giving the fruit to anyone who wants one.
"Stop!" The fruit stand owner shouts desperately, watching his profits vanish. "This is obviously illegal and immoral!"
Is he right? Does it make a difference if you're giving sports cars away, instead of apples? Does it matter if they are diamonds, rather than apples? Does it make a difference if you already have the pattern for an apple, and don't need to buy one from the vendor?
BTW, not-for-profit copyright infringement wasn't illegal in the US until the 1997 "No Electronic Theft (NET) Act". Prior to that, there were no criminal penalties for freely distributing copyrighted material without commercial gain.
I'd really like to see someone answer my questions - I'm not really taking a side, I just love the Socratic method ;-)