Odd that you don't see these SBL people selling banner space on their web-pages to cover legal costs then, now isn't it?
Maybe they don't HAVE to. Maybe they don't want to. It doesn't really mean anything now, does it?
I certainly don't agree with spamming, at all, but how is the SBL any less commercial-use hostile than, say, WebWasher or Junkbuster?
Come now, if you're gonna troll... at least put the effort in to a cute pen name.
By the way - just because you think pop-ups are cutting-edge, doesn't mean the end user is beholden to accepting it. The general population is lazy. They won't go out of their way until they really have to. The fact that apps like WebWasher and Privoxy (the new rendition of Junkbuster - available and easy to install and use on all platforms... windows too) are becoming popular indicates that web advertisers have cut their own throat. Advertisers became too aggressive... too annoying. And the end user does not have to accept it.
I'm pretty amenable to Book-to-Movie conversions, but the movie was a pale shadow of the book. I LOVED LotR. I even liked Johnny Mnemonic. I'll probably never rent Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone again, let alone buy it, which is dissapointing to me.
To each their own. I found the Harry Potter movies fairly faithful renditions of the books. But I thought Johnny Mnemonic was horrid. I will agree with you on LotR though.
Of course - I don't expect much from the Harry Potter movies. AS it is, I didn't find the books all that amazing. Good, yes. Fun and easy to read, sure. Great in that they've generated an increased interest in learning... definately. But nothing to get too worked up over or read too much in to.
As long as I'm going total Comic-book guy on this, does it bother anyone else that Harry Potter is supposed to be this great and powerful wizard, but his friends at Hogwarts always seem to be saving his ass?
Hey... since we're gonna play Comicbook-guy...
Actually. No. Harry Potter isn't some great and powerful wizard. But he is famous. Famous for a single act: surviving a direct attack by the most powerful evil wizard in history. And in surviving, Harry ended Voldemort's short reign of terror... and perhapse even Voldemort himself in some manner. AND Harry did this all as an infant. As Snape likes to point out - this doesn't make Harry an instant great and powerful wizard. But it would be no suprise if the wizard community sees this as a portant for Harry's future success.
So if Harry is destined to become so great and powerful, what about those friends saving his ass? It is simply one of Harry's abilities. Great people are rarely great on their own. They often bring out the best qualities in people around them. They are leaders. They inspire others to perform at their best towards a common goal. Harry performs admirable feats on his own, but he would be nowhere without friends. And he doesn't get those friends through self-gratuitious behavior like Lockhart or back-stabbling like Malfoy.
Years ago MS was talking about using patents as a weapon against free software - but I've not seen anything yet. Have you?
Years ago, Microsoft's troubles with the US government had just began. Microsoft's strategy, and challenge, during this legal battle was to appear less aggressive and point out competition that could overtake Microsoft at any time. Microsoft entered a phase where they had to be less the domineering monopolist and more the successful business fighting for survival in a quick, highly competitive market to bring positive change for the consumer.
That phase is almost over.
In fact, if one accepts that the newest leaked strategy documents (aka Halloween VII) are genuine, there is proof that patent strategy idea is still very much alive within Microsoft. We've seen strategies outlined in previous leaked memos come to life. It is very possible we're about to see a new strategy deployed.
If you think Microsoft is evil just because they are an obstruction to interoperability, then you seriously need to get some perspective.... I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to accept your perspective as valid. It shows an ignorance of the real evils in the world and a tremendous selfishness to equate our inconveniences with real suffering.
I don't see the traditional and "techie" moral codes as being incompatible. One can still label sabotaging software as "evil" without loosing perspective of its relationship to murder. Granted, it does run the risk of trivializing the more fundimental evils... and confusing people who don't adopt the techie moral code. But then differing moral codes have always caused some degree of confusion or debate. For example, I don't agree that building "killing machines" is evil (but then, I wouldn't call them "killing machines" either). I think I understand your perspective... and why you would make that moral call. So I don't believe I am confused by it. I simply disagree.
On a side note - one could make arguments that Microsoft price fixes, hides danger related to their products, and has at least damaged public infrastructure. And while the products produced by the software industry may seem trivial compared to murder and pollution... I would argue that it should not be discounted too much. Information technology leads to rather suprising shifts in more mundane aspects of life - from facilitating scientific discovery to the slow erosion of restrictive regimes. If Microsoft's actions have interferred with the growth of that technology, who knows what collateral damage they may have caused?
Did you read the judgement PDF? It specifically stated that the plaintiff could buy tickets online.
No. But then... this particular thread seems to be more about the 1-800 number being a substitution for the web site service. At least, that's how I read it.
People are always complaining about MS, but besides business practices it really is a very ethical company. It's a criminal company, but it's not evil, not even close.
I completely disagree with this. But then, my code of ethics may not be the same as yours. And that might be why the "evil" tag makes sense to some while a rather outlandish claim to others. So under what code of ethics is Microsoft "evil"?
There seems to be a rather common code of ethics amoung techies. It centers around enabling various components and systems to interoperate. The ability to interoperate in a desired manner is good. Anything that interferes with that interoperation is bad.
Of course, its not a perfect world. Bad things happen. Overcoming and/or fixing bad things is part of the challenge. But sometimes bad things happen on purpose. Anything that interferes with interoperability on purpose with the sole intent to interfere is evil.
When Microsoft is being labled as evil, it is based on this code of techie ethics. Microsoft interferes with interoperability on a regular bassis from incompatible file formats, to obscure protocols (or incompatible extensions to open protocols), to restrictive licenses... and the list goes on. And while they may not be the only "evil" company out there, Microsoft has certainly fine tuned the art.
Of course, Microsoft also tends to run afoul with more traditional ethics too. For example, Microsoft has a rather tough time keeping truthful - whether it is PR, advertising copy, documentation, policy, or court testimony.
Granted - Microsoft could be running on its own ethical code. Or perhapse it has adopted ethical codes that have lead other large corporations in to scandle. But in any case, it shouldn't come as much of a suprise if few around here buy in on the idea of Microsoft as "ethical" or "not evil".
A good question is whether it is fair to offer discounts for one method of purchase over another? Blind folks aren't the only ones that cannot get the discount. Remember, there are still a significant number of people that do not have any access to the internet.
Sure. That occured to me. But there's a difference between choosing not to use a system and being physically unable to (or financially unable to, come to think of it). In this case, the blind customer would have already invested in the infrastructure needed to access a complient web site. And as others have pointed out, making a site accessable by this kind of technology is fairly simple.
I assume someone could have told him about the reduced rate, and thus went to the web to try to obtain it.
So to get access to the discount anybody else can get just by looking... our blind customer has to be in on the "secret". The phone-based customer support surely won't volunteer the discounted price (and in this case, they refused it even when asked if I understand it correctly).
The web-based tool seems like its becoming a standard interface for travel. I know that the last few business trips I planned went start-to-finnish on the web. In hind site, there were some discounts to be had. But it was also much quicker and easier to hash out schedules and prices without waiting in some phone queue.
Maybe creating a proper site with the minimal requirements for disabled access would be justified by the decrease in phone-handled traffic (and demands for web discounts).
Now, if the guy had called, complained that he couldn't navigate the website because he's blind, asked for the reduced rate anyway, and been denied, then he might have a valid complaint.
...and he would know about this reduced "web rate"... how?
Can you sue for "look and feel"? I thought that became a lost cause early on with legal battles between Microsoft vs Apple, and Lotus?
Outlook's main interface may be becoming commoditized (assuming this layout is an Outlook first). Other PIM implementations, like the default Palm calendar, allow multi-day views simular to Outlook. I seem to remember a third-party Palm app that squished ToDo items in that view too.
It may very well be that there is nothing for Microsoft to do. I would imagine they would put their considerable legal resources to work if they thought they had a case. Freeware or not.
Actually, much of it is coming from hucksters in North America. They're just bouncing their pitches off open relays overseas.
Hanlon's Razor aside... I've been wondering if these open relays are intentional. Are they there to provide some sort of anonymous communications within a repressed society? Surely the geek mentality exists even within China. Would an open proxy provide a temporarily untracable communications conduit and plausible deniability? And are spammers taking advantage of such?
Sure. I'm ignoring the simpler possibilities such as ignorance, incompetance, and hard-currency hosting deals. And that seems to scream that I shouldn't discount the whole "Hanlon's Razor" bit at all.
Think Ximian Evolution -- but that's such a verbatim copycat of Outlook that I'm very surprised that they haven't been sued yet.
Yes and no. Screenshots would make it seem like an Outlook clone. And Evolution does mimic some of Outlook's functionality. But they're actually quite different.
So what's the same? Layout is simular. Mail, calandering, tasks (todo), contacts. Summary. And that's about it.
Outlook has memos and a journal. It has a more advanced flagging system. And numerous other tidbits and features I'm probably completely unaware of. It also has better integration. For example, you can create an appointment with an email note in the appointment's notes by dragging an email to the Calendar. No such functionality in Evolution.
But Evolution has its own features. Its searches are better. I prefer the way it threads messages. And its vfolders have proven to be rather amazing once I started to understand their use. Evolution also has nice touches such as quick access to email source and headers. And it is rather sane when handling potentially abusive HTML email (ie: by default, it won't load images from remote sources until told to).
Yea. Evolution and Outlook look simular. And they're bound to compete in one way or another. But they're hardly identical.
Call me crazy, but I just don't know why Linux and Windows always have to compete for the same space. Sure, there's a little overlap, but generally the two (inter)operate separately and nicely.
I'd argue this on two points:
First, interoperability is questionable. Linux solutions tend to strive for interoperability (or at least letting others know how to interoperate with what its doing). Windows tends to focus on interoperating with Windows and excluding others. This is one of the prime reasons Microsoft gets the "evil" moniker. Within the techie culture, interoperability is always a Good Thing and barriers to interoperability are bad. Intentionally induced barriers is "evil".
Secondly, Microsoft and Linux are in the same space. While Linux on the desktop is just starting to shape up (and may never really compete)... Linux is proving itself worth of space in the server farm. It operates on commodity hardware which has been Microsoft's main selling point for years. The lower price of commodity hardware has been Microsoft's edge to chip away at Unix solutions and gain an increasing hold on former Unix markets. Now Linux provides a route to commodity hardware prices without moving from a Unix-like environment. This probably helps the *BSD folks too (since they're another Unix solution for commodity hardware). And it definately helps Sun by keeping MS out of the server farm, out of the minds of business IT departments, out of reach of IT's heavier hardware that makes up Sun's prized market.
As far as theft goes, he did steal, he stole a copy of the movie, and he stole many physical items from the company.
Did he steal a copy? Or did he make an illegal copy? Was it theft, or was it violation of copyright?
On the issue of physical items (if they were physical items - this doesn't seem to be clear), sure. If he stole physical items, then he stole. Of course - what has me curious on this point is whether he actually stole something of "value". Does Lucasfilm archive all these items? Or are they routinely shredded and this guy, fanboi that he is, took them home rather than destroy Star Wars memorabilia? Consider that the vast majority of cells for classic Disney films were destroyed (although sometimes they were given away to friends) - much the way one would handle old documents at your local office. It wasn't until far later that collectors began searching out the rare, surviving cells and (in many cases) restoring them.
The point I was making is that its wrong to reduce the value of an object to its raw materials. A car is worth a lot more than the price of the metal, and a CD full of unreleased material is worth a lot more than the price of the blank CD.
Sure. And I could agree with the point if what was taken was origional, unique objects. It is not clear whether this is the case.
Sure. Data has value - if it didn't, people wouldn't pay for it. But just because data has this value to it, does not neccisarily mean it equates to physical objects.
Cutting away all the fluff, the facts here are that Lucasfilm invested a considerable amount of capital into developing the materials in question, that they were in a postion to profit from their investment, both in the film and the behind the scenes material that could fill years worth of special features and making ofs, and that the individual in question obtained and released the material with neither Lucasfilm's knowledge nor permission.
If this individual took origional copies of the material, thus depriving Lucasfilm of access to it... sure. But again, did he? Or did he make a copy. If it was a copy, then the issue is... what damage did he do with the material in question? Is Lucasfilm now facing an evaporating market for all these special features and behind-the-scenes material?
I suspect these questions will show up in the guy's court case.
Many people thought prior to Slapper coming out that Linux was somehow impenetrable to malware...
Who? Just who thought Linux was a magic bullet against malware? Point them out. And I'll show you an idiot who has not read RECENT history.
Sure - there are some basic architectural decissions that make Linux more resiliant than its Windows bretheren. But the history of Linux (and other flavors of Unix) worms alone show that it is not impenetrable - a history that produces plenty of examples from now until late 1999, a span of less than 3 years.
It amazes me how often zealots - both Linux and Windows - seem to view Slapper as some major new event. Its not. It is not the first Unix worm. It is not the first Linux worm. It didn't infect systems in any particularly unique or novel way. Nor did really generate the kinds of numbers that put it on a pedistal amoung worm-kind.
Slapper is only news to zealots and authors who are both new to information security and generally uninformed.
Do not -- ever -- bring up BackOrifice in a discussion about security. BackOrifice has nothing to do with system security, since it only works if it has the proper system privileges.
Hold your horses. If BO/BO2k is able to do something unexpected, then it does highlight problems with the system's design. Granted - BO was more about exposing security issues than BO2k. BO displayed just how insecure Win9x is. BO2k was more a remote control utility than security demonstration.
Stealing, to me, is not depriving someone of a good that they own, but depriving someone of the ideal of safety.
I find this to be an amazing concept. Tell me - how often are you a victom of theft? When the neighborhood thug looks at you a little too long - did he just steal from you? Are you affraid your employer may have to lay you off due to economic pressure... and thus steal your livelihood? Is the increase in political violence direct theft on your person?
Think you could get any form of law enforcement to make a case of these examples of theft?
With this logic, I should go steal the Mona Lisa, since it's only a few dollars of canvas, oil, and pigments.
You've missed the point.
A closer analogy would be taking a picture of the Mona Lisa and being charged with the theft of the physical painting. Fear of damaging the portrait with constant exposure to flash photography aside... is making a copy of an item akin to actually stealing the item?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they don't HAVE to. Maybe they don't want to. It doesn't really mean anything now, does it?
Come now, if you're gonna troll... at least put the effort in to a cute pen name.
By the way - just because you think pop-ups are cutting-edge, doesn't mean the end user is beholden to accepting it. The general population is lazy. They won't go out of their way until they really have to. The fact that apps like WebWasher and Privoxy (the new rendition of Junkbuster - available and easy to install and use on all platforms... windows too) are becoming popular indicates that web advertisers have cut their own throat. Advertisers became too aggressive... too annoying. And the end user does not have to accept it.
To each their own. I found the Harry Potter movies fairly faithful renditions of the books. But I thought Johnny Mnemonic was horrid. I will agree with you on LotR though.
Of course - I don't expect much from the Harry Potter movies. AS it is, I didn't find the books all that amazing. Good, yes. Fun and easy to read, sure. Great in that they've generated an increased interest in learning... definately. But nothing to get too worked up over or read too much in to.
Hey... since we're gonna play Comicbook-guy...
Actually. No. Harry Potter isn't some great and powerful wizard. But he is famous. Famous for a single act: surviving a direct attack by the most powerful evil wizard in history. And in surviving, Harry ended Voldemort's short reign of terror... and perhapse even Voldemort himself in some manner. AND Harry did this all as an infant. As Snape likes to point out - this doesn't make Harry an instant great and powerful wizard. But it would be no suprise if the wizard community sees this as a portant for Harry's future success.
So if Harry is destined to become so great and powerful, what about those friends saving his ass? It is simply one of Harry's abilities. Great people are rarely great on their own. They often bring out the best qualities in people around them. They are leaders. They inspire others to perform at their best towards a common goal. Harry performs admirable feats on his own, but he would be nowhere without friends. And he doesn't get those friends through self-gratuitious behavior like Lockhart or back-stabbling like Malfoy.
Years ago, Microsoft's troubles with the US government had just began. Microsoft's strategy, and challenge, during this legal battle was to appear less aggressive and point out competition that could overtake Microsoft at any time. Microsoft entered a phase where they had to be less the domineering monopolist and more the successful business fighting for survival in a quick, highly competitive market to bring positive change for the consumer.
That phase is almost over.
In fact, if one accepts that the newest leaked strategy documents (aka Halloween VII) are genuine, there is proof that patent strategy idea is still very much alive within Microsoft. We've seen strategies outlined in previous leaked memos come to life. It is very possible we're about to see a new strategy deployed.
I can think of one. Because their legal wrestling with the Feds is almost over.
I don't see the traditional and "techie" moral codes as being incompatible. One can still label sabotaging software as "evil" without loosing perspective of its relationship to murder. Granted, it does run the risk of trivializing the more fundimental evils... and confusing people who don't adopt the techie moral code. But then differing moral codes have always caused some degree of confusion or debate. For example, I don't agree that building "killing machines" is evil (but then, I wouldn't call them "killing machines" either). I think I understand your perspective... and why you would make that moral call. So I don't believe I am confused by it. I simply disagree.
On a side note - one could make arguments that Microsoft price fixes, hides danger related to their products, and has at least damaged public infrastructure. And while the products produced by the software industry may seem trivial compared to murder and pollution... I would argue that it should not be discounted too much. Information technology leads to rather suprising shifts in more mundane aspects of life - from facilitating scientific discovery to the slow erosion of restrictive regimes. If Microsoft's actions have interferred with the growth of that technology, who knows what collateral damage they may have caused?
No. But then... this particular thread seems to be more about the 1-800 number being a substitution for the web site service. At least, that's how I read it.
I completely disagree with this. But then, my code of ethics may not be the same as yours. And that might be why the "evil" tag makes sense to some while a rather outlandish claim to others. So under what code of ethics is Microsoft "evil"?
There seems to be a rather common code of ethics amoung techies. It centers around enabling various components and systems to interoperate. The ability to interoperate in a desired manner is good. Anything that interferes with that interoperation is bad.
Of course, its not a perfect world. Bad things happen. Overcoming and/or fixing bad things is part of the challenge. But sometimes bad things happen on purpose. Anything that interferes with interoperability on purpose with the sole intent to interfere is evil.
When Microsoft is being labled as evil, it is based on this code of techie ethics. Microsoft interferes with interoperability on a regular bassis from incompatible file formats, to obscure protocols (or incompatible extensions to open protocols), to restrictive licenses... and the list goes on. And while they may not be the only "evil" company out there, Microsoft has certainly fine tuned the art.
Of course, Microsoft also tends to run afoul with more traditional ethics too. For example, Microsoft has a rather tough time keeping truthful - whether it is PR, advertising copy, documentation, policy, or court testimony.
Granted - Microsoft could be running on its own ethical code. Or perhapse it has adopted ethical codes that have lead other large corporations in to scandle. But in any case, it shouldn't come as much of a suprise if few around here buy in on the idea of Microsoft as "ethical" or "not evil".
Sure. That occured to me. But there's a difference between choosing not to use a system and being physically unable to (or financially unable to, come to think of it). In this case, the blind customer would have already invested in the infrastructure needed to access a complient web site. And as others have pointed out, making a site accessable by this kind of technology is fairly simple.
People like you don't think things through, do you? :)
So to get access to the discount anybody else can get just by looking... our blind customer has to be in on the "secret". The phone-based customer support surely won't volunteer the discounted price (and in this case, they refused it even when asked if I understand it correctly).
The web-based tool seems like its becoming a standard interface for travel. I know that the last few business trips I planned went start-to-finnish on the web. In hind site, there were some discounts to be had. But it was also much quicker and easier to hash out schedules and prices without waiting in some phone queue.
Maybe creating a proper site with the minimal requirements for disabled access would be justified by the decrease in phone-handled traffic (and demands for web discounts).
Can you sue for "look and feel"? I thought that became a lost cause early on with legal battles between Microsoft vs Apple, and Lotus?
Outlook's main interface may be becoming commoditized (assuming this layout is an Outlook first). Other PIM implementations, like the default Palm calendar, allow multi-day views simular to Outlook. I seem to remember a third-party Palm app that squished ToDo items in that view too.
It may very well be that there is nothing for Microsoft to do. I would imagine they would put their considerable legal resources to work if they thought they had a case. Freeware or not.
Hanlon's Razor aside... I've been wondering if these open relays are intentional. Are they there to provide some sort of anonymous communications within a repressed society? Surely the geek mentality exists even within China. Would an open proxy provide a temporarily untracable communications conduit and plausible deniability? And are spammers taking advantage of such?
Sure. I'm ignoring the simpler possibilities such as ignorance, incompetance, and hard-currency hosting deals. And that seems to scream that I shouldn't discount the whole "Hanlon's Razor" bit at all.
But I still wonder.
Yes and no. Screenshots would make it seem like an Outlook clone. And Evolution does mimic some of Outlook's functionality. But they're actually quite different.
So what's the same? Layout is simular. Mail, calandering, tasks (todo), contacts. Summary. And that's about it.
Outlook has memos and a journal. It has a more advanced flagging system. And numerous other tidbits and features I'm probably completely unaware of. It also has better integration. For example, you can create an appointment with an email note in the appointment's notes by dragging an email to the Calendar. No such functionality in Evolution.
But Evolution has its own features. Its searches are better. I prefer the way it threads messages. And its vfolders have proven to be rather amazing once I started to understand their use. Evolution also has nice touches such as quick access to email source and headers. And it is rather sane when handling potentially abusive HTML email (ie: by default, it won't load images from remote sources until told to).
Yea. Evolution and Outlook look simular. And they're bound to compete in one way or another. But they're hardly identical.
I'd argue this on two points:
First, interoperability is questionable. Linux solutions tend to strive for interoperability (or at least letting others know how to interoperate with what its doing). Windows tends to focus on interoperating with Windows and excluding others. This is one of the prime reasons Microsoft gets the "evil" moniker. Within the techie culture, interoperability is always a Good Thing and barriers to interoperability are bad. Intentionally induced barriers is "evil".
Secondly, Microsoft and Linux are in the same space. While Linux on the desktop is just starting to shape up (and may never really compete)... Linux is proving itself worth of space in the server farm. It operates on commodity hardware which has been Microsoft's main selling point for years. The lower price of commodity hardware has been Microsoft's edge to chip away at Unix solutions and gain an increasing hold on former Unix markets. Now Linux provides a route to commodity hardware prices without moving from a Unix-like environment. This probably helps the *BSD folks too (since they're another Unix solution for commodity hardware). And it definately helps Sun by keeping MS out of the server farm, out of the minds of business IT departments, out of reach of IT's heavier hardware that makes up Sun's prized market.
Don't tell me you've never heard of Clippy.
Did he steal a copy? Or did he make an illegal copy? Was it theft, or was it violation of copyright?
On the issue of physical items (if they were physical items - this doesn't seem to be clear), sure. If he stole physical items, then he stole. Of course - what has me curious on this point is whether he actually stole something of "value". Does Lucasfilm archive all these items? Or are they routinely shredded and this guy, fanboi that he is, took them home rather than destroy Star Wars memorabilia? Consider that the vast majority of cells for classic Disney films were destroyed (although sometimes they were given away to friends) - much the way one would handle old documents at your local office. It wasn't until far later that collectors began searching out the rare, surviving cells and (in many cases) restoring them.
Sure. And I could agree with the point if what was taken was origional, unique objects. It is not clear whether this is the case.
Sure. Data has value - if it didn't, people wouldn't pay for it. But just because data has this value to it, does not neccisarily mean it equates to physical objects.
If this individual took origional copies of the material, thus depriving Lucasfilm of access to it... sure. But again, did he? Or did he make a copy. If it was a copy, then the issue is... what damage did he do with the material in question? Is Lucasfilm now facing an evaporating market for all these special features and behind-the-scenes material?
I suspect these questions will show up in the guy's court case.
Who? Just who thought Linux was a magic bullet against malware? Point them out. And I'll show you an idiot who has not read RECENT history.
Sure - there are some basic architectural decissions that make Linux more resiliant than its Windows bretheren. But the history of Linux (and other flavors of Unix) worms alone show that it is not impenetrable - a history that produces plenty of examples from now until late 1999, a span of less than 3 years.
It amazes me how often zealots - both Linux and Windows - seem to view Slapper as some major new event. Its not. It is not the first Unix worm. It is not the first Linux worm. It didn't infect systems in any particularly unique or novel way. Nor did really generate the kinds of numbers that put it on a pedistal amoung worm-kind.
Slapper is only news to zealots and authors who are both new to information security and generally uninformed.
Hold your horses. If BO/BO2k is able to do something unexpected, then it does highlight problems with the system's design. Granted - BO was more about exposing security issues than BO2k. BO displayed just how insecure Win9x is. BO2k was more a remote control utility than security demonstration.
If he did, in fact, cause so much damage to this project... why were people lining up to watch the thing at the theatres?
I find this to be an amazing concept. Tell me - how often are you a victom of theft? When the neighborhood thug looks at you a little too long - did he just steal from you? Are you affraid your employer may have to lay you off due to economic pressure... and thus steal your livelihood? Is the increase in political violence direct theft on your person?
Think you could get any form of law enforcement to make a case of these examples of theft?
I don't.
You've missed the point.
A closer analogy would be taking a picture of the Mona Lisa and being charged with the theft of the physical painting. Fear of damaging the portrait with constant exposure to flash photography aside... is making a copy of an item akin to actually stealing the item?