Comment Re:his argument seems flawed (Score 1) 381
No, because there's no criminal duplication involved in redistributing a licensed copy of that CD. IOW: there's no initial crime in giving away (or selling) a used CD, so there is no liability for having done so to begin with.
I guess I wasn't clear. What I meant was that by leaving a CD on a park bench (which is publicly accessible) I could, by your reasoning, be liable if someone comes along, copies the CD, and replaces the CD on the park bench. By your reasoning I have 'distributed' the CD by allowing (intentionally or not) someone to copy it.So in this case too I could admit that a crime had taken place but that crime wasn't theft (the CD was returned) and I'd argue that leaving the CD there wasn't 'distribution' so the only crime was copyright infringement by the person who copied the CD on the bench.
Oh well, it doesn't really matter anyways I just think that you have to be careful with defining the word 'distribution' as if it includes unintentional public access you can get into all kinds of weird situations. Are you 'distributing' alcohol to minors if you forget to lock up a store with alcohol in it? etc, etc?