Illegal File Trading Draws Two P2P Raids In Europe

had3l writes "Police in Finland raided the operation of a popular Bit Torrent site and arrested 34 people, 30 of which were volunteers who helped moderate the site. This comes right after the MPAA reported that it would start suing tracker servers." An anonymous reader points to a story (currently at the top of RespectP2P.org's homepage) about the raid yesterday morning of Dutch eDonkey sites Releases4u and Shareconnector.

Comments

Re:This is for the best, really

[julesh]

A definition:

theft
n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale).

[source: dictionary.law.com]

The relevant phrase here is "takes personal property [...] without permission or consent". Nothing has been taken, only an additional copy has been made.

Also note "convert it to the taker's use". When copyright is infringed, the original copy still remains, and therefore its use is not in way converted.

It is _NOT_ theft.

Or, if you prefer a non-legal definition (despite the fact that we're talking about legal matters here), try this one:

theft // n.
1 the act or an instance of stealing.
2 dishonest appropriation of another's property with intent to deprive him or her of it permanently.

[concise oxford english dictionary, 9th ed]

Nobody is deprived of the original copy of the work, so making a copy of it is not theft. Nor is it stealing, which is to "take (property etc.) without right or permission, esp. in secret with the intention of not returning it" as nothing has been taken that could be returned.