somebody wrote:
> Unless the right happens to be ownership right. Then violation of that right
> is theft.

Copyright isn't an ownership right. It's a right to prevent others from copying.

Say I go to the store and buy a book whose copyright is owned by Fred. I 
then take that book home and make a copy. What does Fred own that I stole?

Fred still owns the copyright.  I still own the copy I bought.  Fred knows 
nothing about the new copy I just made, and indeed it may even be legal for 
me to have made that copy even if copyright is enforced as it is in the USA.

So what does Fred own that I stole by making the copy?


>> Theft is very explicitly "the act of stealing;
> 
> What is theft? Stealing. What is stealing? Theft. Dictionaries are not
> useful to explain the why.

Law dictionaries are, if you're talking about legal terms.

> Intellectual property is, well, property.

Not really. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a separate word for it.

> You may of course disagree. But so long as the law states that people can
> own copyrights, patents or trademarsks, they are property.

Yep. They're property. But nobody is talking about stealing copyrights, 
trademarks, or patents.

> I claim that you didn't own the car in the first place, it was improper of
> the law to grant you ownership. Thus it's not theft. Absurd? Well, you are
> making the same claim.

You're confusing the ownership of the copyright with the ownership of the 
individual copies of the protected work. You're arguing that since a 
copyright can be owned, making a copy of a protected work is theft. You're 
mistaken in that.

Now, you can continue to insist that were you right, copyright violation 
would be theft, but that's not really an interesting argument.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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