Actually, this isn't piracy anyway. Hacking into a computer to get at confidential data isn't the same thing as producing unlicensed copies of publicly-available data. I've no idea what the law is in Russia, but in the UK for example, this is a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and could lead to 6 months' imprisonment, or a £5000 fine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Misuse_Act_1990
No, not according to the law. The legal definition of stealing is "The wrongful or willful taking of money or property belonging to someone else with intent to deprive the owner of its use or benefit either temporarily or permanently".Originally posted by Chivas:
Taking something that doesn't belong to you is. STEALING
Theft:
"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)."
Larceny:
"Illegal taking and carrying away of personal property belonging to another with the purpose of depriving the owner of its possession."
These crimes all REQUIRE physical property and the intent to deprive the original owner of said property. The copying and unauthorized distribution of intellectual property does NOT deprive the original owner of the property. Thus we have separate laws.
No, not according to the law. The legal definition of stealing is "The wrongful or willful taking of money or property belonging to someone else with intent to deprive the owner of its use or benefit either temporarily or permanently".Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chivas:
Taking something that doesn't belong to you is. STEALING
Theft:
"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)."
Larceny:
"Illegal taking and carrying away of personal property belonging to another with the purpose of depriving the owner of its possession."
These crimes all REQUIRE physical property and the intent to deprive the original owner of said property. The copying and unauthorized distribution of intellectual property does NOT deprive the original owner of the property. Thus we have separate laws. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
That's interesting. It does make sense, although it might seem that the written laws reflect that it might not be keeping up with the speed of technology as it is today.
Consider if a company or an individual had put years of effort and money into an original CAD design for a device, (or even software for a computer game) and that designer/creator's computer was successfully hacked by an outside source, how is this action legally defined? I would think that such a victim would be SOL if they had not yet taken any intellectual property legal precautions since the project might be incomplete at the time.
If someone were to use the defense of "Hey, I didn't physically take anything. All I did was make a copy for myself, and besides, they still have the original!", I would compare it to this: When I was a kid, I would watch the 'Mission Impossible' crew sneak in, take pictures of top secret documents with a mini camera in a supposedly secure room in a supposedly secure facility, and then GTFO to make their way back to safety. Pretty cool, but I did think of it as taking something that didn't belong to them in the first place.![]()