Comment Re:protecting intellectual property is... theft?! (Score 1) 328
Yes, copyright infringement is stealing.
Factually incorrect.Copyright infringement and theft have completely different legal definitions and different laws apply to each.
You're starting off on a false premise, and using mathy-looking letter variables doesn't make your logic any less sloppy.
It might not have been clear but the person I was responding to said that copyright extensions were "stealing" society but copyright infringement wasn't stealing. I was merely pointing out their sloppy logic that if one of them was an act of theft then they were both an act of theft. I know legally that copy infringement is not theft however, the copyright holder makes less money as a result of the infringement which is why it has the appearance of theft. Of course how much money is lost is the great debate that no one can ever truly settle.
I'm sorry you found the "mathy-looking letter variables" overwhelming but they were simply used for conciseness. Here's a more wordy version that should be more to your liking.
I know logic probably escapes you but in both cases a person deprives another person of something. So if in one case it's stealing then it's stealing in both cases.