Copyright Infringement

I understand the difference quite well. Why do you think OJ lost in civil court over the death of his former wife? Victims of crimes can sue in civil court even if there is no conviction in criminal court.


You on the other hand seem to have a problem with telling the difference.

Night Ripper wrote:

Yet, you think we should be locking people up in rape dungeons just so you can watch "Transformers 3"?

Night Ripper wrote:

Remember that, all laws ultimately escalate to imprisonment or death, without exception, from littering to rape.

So, is it a crime or not Night Ripper? You seem confused about it now.

It violates the artist's control of his work.

the natural right of an artist to control the product of work has been recognized and defended.

I can't explain it much better, there is something inherent about possessing and controlling what you have made, that allows you to share it or not share it, to sell it or not sell it, to allow anyone for no price to use, copy, reference or even change it OR not to allow anyone for any price to do anything with it.

The reason why people get locked up is not the civil lawsuit but rather the refusal to give up their property when the results of the lawsuit demand that they do.

Yet you can't apply any of these things to copyright so that's why I remain unconvinced

How can the possibly win such a lawsuit unless the law says they own the property and it was stolen from them?

If that's true then why aren't these people arrested for theft of property?

parados wrote:

How can the possibly win such a lawsuit unless the law says they own the property and it was stolen from them?

If that's true then why aren't these people arrested for theft of property?

Failure to be arrested doesn't mean it isn't theft anymore than failure to be convicted means something isn't murder.

So, on what basis can such a lawsuit be won? Is it not because there was theft? The person accused is in possession of something he is not authorized to have by the owner of the property.

It's not a mere failure of the legal system to do something they are supposed to do. They can't arrest you for theft based on copyright infringement.

They can convict you for murder but they failed to.

You must be smarter than this.

The lawsuit is won on the ground of copyright infringement not theft of property. The legal system recognizes that they are very different things.

Since I can't write as well as Sir Hugh, I will reproduce his remarks:

Quote:

...

And if it is permissible to bring criminal proceedings, why not do so? The threat of a criminal conviction hanging over an alleged infringer's head and the heads of its directors is much more likely to make them sue for peace than the mere risk of losing in civil proceedings. Like the prospect of being hanged, it does concentrate the mind. The fact that these statutory provisions are being used to enforce purely private commercial rights appears to be irrelevant. Furthermore, there is a great incentive to proceed in this way. The costs of the prosecuting copyright owner are usually paid out of central funds, even if the prosecution fails.

...

...Very few acts of infringement warrant criminal prosecution, which should be limited to large-scale commercial enterprises. With Justice laddie, I think that taxpayers' money should not be used to enforce private rights which are more than adequately protected by civil remedies, and I doubt many taxpayers share the view that theft, fraud, and violent crime are, absolutely or relatively, petty.

1. Not all crimes are pursued. Surely you have to know that. The government doesn't have resources to make arrests for every crime.
2. Simply because a crime is not pursued is not evidence that the crime didn't happen.
3. Under our legal system we can sue to recover damages from a crime. If someone trespasses on my property repeatedly, I can sue for damages. They don't have to be arrested.

Ad hominem? Really? You are going to resort to that. Ah well.

One argument against criminalizing small-scale copyright infringement, it seems to me, is that copyright infringement seems inherently non-violent.

The point is the government CANNOT arrest you for theft of property over copyright infringement. It's not that they don't want to or failed to.

But you can be arrested for copyright infringement Night

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002319----000-.html

Interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: ... 'an infringer of the copyright.' ...

The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
—Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207, pp. 217–218

infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

yes, and?
Clearly the USSC said

Quote:

infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

So.. doesn't that defeat your argument that you can do it simply because it isn't "theft'?

No, the USSC court only ruled it wasn't theft as defined under 2314 because Congress could and did address it as a separate issue.

The court didn't rule it wasn't theft at all.

They ruled it was copyright infringement, not theft.

I'm not interested in beating this dead horse. You haven't equated copying with theft so let's move on.