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From: buzzard@world.std.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Yet another copyright thread (was Re: An unpopular question that
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Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000 17:21:46 GMT
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Jonathan Blask  <ellison@zork.plover.net> wrote:
>Then the
>deluge of posts come in, all taking issue with the question of whether
>copyright infringement is theft.
>	Still, I think the heart of the matter is, is it wrong?  Most of
>us would agree 'yeah.'

It may be "the heart of the matter" to you, but of course it wasn't what
anyone was discussing (except perhaps Brian), so it's a bit misleading to
say so. I think everybody here already takes the fact that it is wrong for
granted, and if not, it's at least all been discussed to death.

On the other hand, the notion that illegal copying *is* theft
is a new, un-discussed idea, and hence people were interested
in discussing it (except perhaps Brian). I think to the participants
in the extended discussion, "illegal copying != theft" *was*
supposed to be the heart of the discussion (again, except for
the obvious exception).

Whether it should be explained as a pedantic language correction
as one person has attempted to, or as an attempt to educate someone
with absurd ideas, or simply as a debate to test the validity of the
proposition (my personal favorite, and one that need not attribute any
maliciousness to the misunderstanding), it does seem likely
that both sides of the debate are not approaching the problem
with the same set of assumptions about the debate.

Which of course makes it entirely pointless.

SeanB
