[hobbs]

Gack! Piracy IS NOT THEFT. It is copyright infringement. The copyright lobby would like you to believe that it is theft, but it is not. If you pirate a $10K software suite, you will not be charged with grand theft: software.

Theft, by definition, transfers value from the original possessor use to the thief - a zero sum transaction where the thief gains at the owner's loss. Copyright infringement does not do so. It only deprives the original possessor of potential future value. (You could even argue within some legal jurisdictions that there is copyright infringement only when the pirate derives commercial gain from the copy.)

[shiranaihito]

Yep, the only reason they call it theft (or even piracy) is because it sounds a lot more dramatic.

When I first heard about piracy, it meant people copying CDs and _selling_ them.

[hobbs]

Heh. Interesting that they've stopped using the term "piracy" so much now that pirates are thought of as debonair swashbucklers who are sticking it to The Man, instead of as the murderous thugs that they actually were (are). Thank you, Johnny Depp.