Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On 05/16/2000, Dodi Schultz <schultz[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> [...] when Shakespeare ruminated on "stealing a purse" (theft)
> versus "filching" -- or "robbing" someone of -- a good name, he
> was referring in the latter case to yet a third legal concept,
> defamation.
>
> Still, in the moral -- or ethical -- sense, are not all of these
> examples of wrongly taking something of value from someone else?
> And, in that sense, theft?

If we both profit from our barter, is that theft? If I learn from your wisdom, is that theft? If I find pleasure in your company, are you poorer for it? Clearly, we can take something of value from someone else and have it be in no sense theft.

If you base the evaluation on morality or ethics, of course, it all comes down to what you believe constitutes "wrongly" in some deep, personal and instinctively definite way. It has little if anything to do with the rarefied legal and socio-political bases of intellectual property law. (This is, of course, why we separate Church and State.)

CYa,
JEREMY Jeremy G. Byrne
<jeremy[_at_]iz.org> Received on Wed May 17 2000 - 14:22:19 GMT