Re: DRM

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

   >    With the rate of IP theft,
   > 
   > You cannot steal something that is intangible.  I can steal your
   > hammer, I cannot steal your code.

   That is a matter of law, not opinion.

It is a matter of law, and the English language.

   If you are saying: "the legal concepts of property and ownership
   should not extend to things that are intangible", then we might
   have an interesting debate on some other list. Following this
   discussion, we might decide to collaborate in some form of
   activism.

Find a list and we can have that debate.

   But the plain fact is that today you are utterly wrong. As a matter
   of law, things that are intangible absolutely *can* be stolen.

You obviously don't know the law, it has a nice definition of `theft'.
In the court you will never hear `IP theft', you will hear copyright
infrigment, trademark and patent violations, but not `IP theft', since
it has no legal meaning, logical meaning or any relation to reality.
You won't even hear the word `intelectual property', since that too
has no leagal meaning, since property cannot be intellectual.

Infact, just speaking about IP in general terms is simply confusing,
since it touches on several aspects of law, most of them not even
related with each other.  It also spread the misconception that
e.g. software should be treated like physical objects.

Theft is ethically and morally wrong, copying e.g. software even if
the license doesn't allow it in the legal sense, isn't.  Since nobody
looses that you copy something.