From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Aug 02 2000 - 21:23:35 MDT
>Jason Joel Thompson wrote:
>
> > Uh, actually this argument fails to sway because it defines theft in
>very
> > simplistic terms. You might not be stealing my music if you copy it,
>but
> > you certainly are stealing my profit. If you desire something that I
>have
> > spent energy producing, then it is clear that we should come to some
> > arrangement by which I should end up with something that you have spent
> > energy producing (like, er, money for instance.)
> > By your argument, it should be legal to counterfeit money.
Nice rhetoric, but its not *quite* the same thing. The main reason its
illegal to counterfeit money is that the only purpose of counterfeit money
is to use it to dupe people into giving you things and services of value for
something which has no value. In other words, its raison d'etre is to
facilitate the commission of fraud.
The crime of counterfeiting has *nothing* to do with infringing the
Government's copyright on the design of a dollar. In fact the Government
has never enforced its copyright on the design of money (although it
arguably has the right to do so). So long as your reproduction of money has
no reasonable chance of being used to commit fraud (say, painting a larger
than life size dollar bill on the side of a building) Uncle Sam won't give a
hoot.
-Zero
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