On 5/14/2009 4:22 PM, somebody wrote:
>> Theft is very explicitly "the act of stealing;
>
> What is theft? Stealing. What is stealing? Theft. Dictionaries are not
> useful to explain the why.

Did you read my first post?  Let me repeat:
"the act of taking something from someone unlawfully"

Dictionaries are incredibly useful to explain why.

>> taking and carrying away of the *personal goods or property* of another;
>> larceny."
>
> Intellectual property is, well, property.

Legally, IP is property.  However, it has no physical substance and is, 
well, rather abstract.

Can you own a number?  According to current law you can, which is why my 
repeating the hexadecimal number "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 
56 88 C0" is illegal breach of IP.

But it's just a number, and the idea of owning it is as absurd as your 
owning the number "7", or Darren's owning the number Pi.

Don't get me wrong, IP is an incredibly useful concept, but the term is 
misrepresentative.

> 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.

When have I ever said that IP owners do not actually own their IP?  On 
the contrary, I have repeatedly stated that, according to current law, 
unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material (which is the idea 
that started this whole conversation) is illegal.

Perhaps you should read things twice before you respond to them; as the 
saying goes, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than 
to speak up and remove all doubt."

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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