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Copyright Infringement and Shoplifting Contrasted
awesomeO4001 wrote in to mention a post to Karl Wagenfuehr's blog where he compares and contrasts the penalties for copyright infringement vs. shoplifting. From the post: "...from what I can tell, the penalties laid out for downloading one season of a TV show with BitTorrent are much harsher than if you actually stole a DVD set of the same show from a government store...For stealing the DVD you could face no more than up to 1 year imprisonment and up to a $100,000 fine; for downloading the same material you could face statutory damages of up to $3,300,000, costs and attorney's fees"
Maybe manipulating the magnetic charge of particles on a hard drive platter that I own, or changing the voltage of output pins on a computer that I own SHOULD BE LEGAL.
Well I don't know, let's see: I have nails in my workshop, I have a bottle of butane under the stove, an alarm clock, batteries, a small light bulb and some gunpowder from the many rifle cartridges in my gun rack. I own them all, maybe connecting the batteries to the alarm clock and the light bulb, smashing the bulb's glass, sticking the filament into gunpowder, installing the whole thing next to the gas bottle and wrapping the whole in nails and duct-tape SHOULD BE LEGAL.
Oh, and I also own a camera. Perhaps rearranging the bits of silver on the film to show naked little boys doing naughty things to my dogs (which I own) SHOULD BE LEGAL.
IT SHOULD BE ALL LEGAL DANGIT!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
. . . using change you begged for or found on the corner.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.