[plug] [OT] "stealing"? (and murder, assault, universal truths...)

[Leon Brooks]

On Monday 18 November 2002 01:07 pm, Mike Holland wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Nov 2002, Leon Brooks wrote:
>> Copyright infringement == stealing.

> "Meat is murder"

...unless you shave a non-lethal amount off the animal every day, in which 
case it's only armed assault and battery.

> "abortion is murder"

Draw a line for me: at what age does a baby stop being a baby?

A good friend of mine has a daughter, a cute little thing, who was born after 
only 22 weeks of gestation and now coming along just fine. Would aborting her 
a week earlier have been murder? I say it would unquestionably be murder, do 
you agree?

> "Property is theft"

Thank you, George Orwell. Turning something into your property _can_ be theft 
in certain circumstances. Certainly, there are those who say (rightly or 
wrongly) that it _invites_ theft.

> nothing but political slogans

Gong! Political slogans, yes, and maybe something else as well. This is 
unusually sloppy reasoning for you, Mike.

> and all wrong by definition

Which definition? `All slogans are wrong'?

> irrespective of your moral/political viewpoint.

Er, what?

> Copyright is something that some societies choose to have, when they feel
> it is to their collective benefit. It is not an instinsic truth or divine
> proclamation.

If I said it was, you failed to show that. I assert that I made no such claim. 
I assert that I spoke not in a universal context, but in the context of a 
discussion of copyright laws.

In order for copying to be theft, there must be copyright laws; given 
copyright laws and that the design falls under them, it becomes theft.

I assert that your response was unreasonable. How do you plead? (-:

> The distincion is important when it comes to patents, which can do much
> harm as well as good.

Yes. They're certainly not being employed for their original reasons, and 
we're suffering for it.

Cheers; Leon