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by userbinator 293 days ago
Stealing physical property deprives its original owner of it. The same can't be said of IP.
1 comments

So what? That at most means they’re slightly different flavors of the abstraction we call “property”.

And owning property — even physical property — entails having the right to prevent other people from using it, even in ways that don’t deprive you of it. You can’t drive my car without permission, even if you bring it back in perfect condition and I wasn’t planning on using it that day.