Maybe not according to the RIAA. Also according to the RIAA, every time you download a song, you kill a kitten. (And cause a poor music executive to starve. :()

I'm not going to argue much on this point - the law should probably be updated with respect to newer technology, but that will be a very long and sticky debating process.

However, I do know that under the current US legal system, it isn't theft. I know the RIAA/MPAA wants to hurt the filesharers as much as possible, and felony theft charges would be just the way - but all they're doing is filing civil suits, because the law says it isn't theft.

It's not just the RIAA/MPAA. It's also software makers, book authors, and other makers of non-physical property. Process designers, for instance.

denim, I'm not trying to pick a fight, honest :) I completely understand what you mean - my mother is an author. It's just that I don't think the criminal code was written with these kind of innovations in mind, as before the advent of computers, it was much more trouble to borrow someone's book and write out a copy of it than it was to just go buy it or borrow & read.

I don't know what should be done for the legal system to fix this, but the current legal codes need a lot of updating for pretty much everything concerning computers (hacking, copyright infringement, spamming, fraud, etc.). One of the biggest problems - I think - is that the people responsible for the laws don't know the technology.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the laws (in this regard, anyway. Certainly in general there's a lot wrong with them.). There's nothing different between copying a physical book and copying a file except the latter can be done at no cost. It wasn't theft before computers and it isn't theft now, no matter how much certain groups would like to pretend otherwise. Theft implies a direct loss of property to another individual. There is no such direct loss in copyright infringement. I'm not sure where there is any debate here in the absence of willful ignorance.

From what I remember hearing quite a while back (20 years?), there've been machines for quite a while now into which you insert a bound book, and they turn the pages and copy them all, turning out... a bound book. This isn't new stuff here.

Yes, some things need better definition. The key point is that you can have "theft", including "theft of service" now that I think about it (ever roll a whore? hardly a recent idea), w/o loss of the original item. The issue, it seems to me, isn't a matter of proper definition, but of detection and enforcement.

But then, we've got a bit of a problem with that in this country (USA) in general.

So, erm, how did this turn out???

hm... i guess the bastard stopped posting.

Yeah, supposedly everything went down today.

I've received a letter like this one from MPAA and Universal when I was around 16 years old. I used to have a private server on FTP before all this kazaa stuff in which I had ripped movies on. The letter didn't have a court date on it but it said something about a $250,000 fine or some nonsense. I threw it out because it didn't say anything about appearing it court, it was more of a warning. A couple days later my internet was cutoff. I called the company and they said I needed to take my server down because the MPAA contacted them. I just said "uhhh I don't know what you're talking about, I don't run a server, I'm only 16 years old." They put the internet back on and that was the end of that.

I was pretty lucky, probably because this was before the MPAA and RIAA were really going after people, plus I was a minor.

I got another letter threatening to sue me from a clothing company because I ordered a fake shirt off ebay and it was seized by customs. I called the lawyer and told him that he can't sue me for having the counterfeit shirt because I never received it and I never knew it was fake until I got the letter from customs. I told him if he wanted to sue anyone it should be the factory in Asia producing the shirts and not the person who bought them. I think me losing my money is punishment enough. Needless to say I never had to go to court or talk to them anymore.

On a related note, I got a letter saying that I owed the US Government $200 for the cost of BEING arrested on an Army base, or I'd be taken to collections. I sent them a polite letter to the jist of " (a) fuck you, I didn't ask to be arrested so I'm not paying you a dime and (b) after being arrested and summoned to court, the case was dropped because I hadn't commited a crime so.. (c) FUCK YOU..

Needless to say their warning was useless too... it's amazing how hard companies will try to scare you into submission (without actually doing anything..)