Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

For all the lawyers on the list: I previously conceded that infringing on my copyright is not -- in the *legal* sense of the word -- "theft," since that term has a particular significance in law and would not apply to copyright infringement.

And in reply to Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> (hi, Terry, miss seeing you on CompuServe!):

I also concede that "possession" has a similar particular significance in law, inapplicable to copyright.

I think part of the problem, in a discussion like this, is that those of us who are not lawyers are inclined to use certain words in a
*generally understood* (including ethical or moral) sense, while those
trained in the law automatically see those same words in their narrow, restricted sense.

So we end up using two different vocabularies.

Thus: To me, an infringement on my copyright means that someone has
*taken* something from me. In legal terms, that's not *theft,*
because copyright is intangible. In lay language, taking something that rightly "belongs to" someone else, whether it's a tangible possession or a right that has been granted to that person by law (e.g., copyright), is stealing from that individual.

No, I'm not saying that any of us need to adopt a new vocabulary. Only that being aware of those differences might be helpful. We might be in more agreement than we think.

--Dodi Schultz
  <schultz[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Fri May 19 2000 - 15:58:24 GMT