[d@DCC] Unintended consequences of treating the anonymous part of the Internet as other than BY-NC-ND

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Mon, 23 May 2005, James McKinney wrote:
> infringement of moral rights under copyright law. But we were talking
> about being liable for "theft of computer services" by simply sending
> traffic to another person's site, and I don't think you should be liable
> for that.

How would it be possible, then, or *should* it even be possible, to punish
people who stage DoS attacks?

> >>>I operate myself on the other side of the street, and set it up on my
> >>>premesis under a big sign saying "FREE FOOD HERE!".  Is that perfectly okay?
> >>>
> >>No, that's theft.
> >>
> >>
> >How is it different (or *is* it different?) from embedding images

> Theft deprives the owner of the property permanently or temporarily.
> Copying does not. So, yes, your example is quite different. If you don't

My example of embedded images is not copying.  The images would still be
on the victim's server; I'd only be posting a URL on my own site.  I'm
using the bandwidth of the victim's Web server, and depriving the victim
of that bandwidth.  The bandwidth is a finite resource that they own, but
can't use for their own purposes because I'm using it for mine, against
the owner's wishes.  Can you really say that that's *always*, *in all
cases*, an okay thing to do?  I think in at least a few situations, it
would be theft.

I am not saying that it would always or usually be theft.

Also, it's very important to understand that it's not the image file
that's being stolen; it is the Web hosting service.

> understand this, I wonder whether you also think that copyright
> infringement is theft.

Copyright infringement, as you correctly point out, doesn't deprive the
copyright holder of the thing being copied.  It doesn't deprive them of
their ability to make copies of it, either, because that is not a
finite, limited resource.  No theft there.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                    Embrace and defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/