> And I am sure that it was obvious that they were free samples. Or you
> would not have taken them.

To many the Adobe CS2 download page is obviously them giving away the 
software for free - I doubt most people would even give it a second 
thought and would just download the software (unless they happened to 
have heard about the controversy) in exactly the same way they download 
free software from other authors' sites.

> I read that and am a bit surprised that neither you nor anyone else
> mentioned that the theft act explicitly states... dishonestly
> appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of
> permanently depriving the other of it;
>
> With downloading software you do not depriving the other of it.

IANAL, but if downloading software without the correct license is not 
theft but copyright infringement, there's a similar clause in that law:

"97 Provisions as to damages in infringement action.

(1)Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at 
the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no 
reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the 
action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, 
but without prejudice to any other remedy."

So again the judge would ask the court, did the downloader have a reason 
to believe the software on that page was not free. Given that it is 
distributed in exactly the same way free software is, and not how paid 
software is usually distributed then it might be tricky to insist the 
downloader should have known they had to pay for it.

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