Re: Win32Ada

[kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner)]

In article <73c3so$rsi$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> dennison@telepath.com writes:
>In article <73633i$aqs$1@news.nyu.edu>,
>  kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote:
>> I'd agree the GPL doesn't make illegal, but I'd be very concerned
>> about a criminal charge of "possession of stolen property" against
>> anybody who knowingly accepted such material since it *was* stolen and
>> is a licenced and copyrighted work.
>
>I don't think that would be a problem. BDU was deprived of no physical
>resource, and CJ was meerly copying the software from their hard-drives in
>accordance with the software license. By the terms of the license, copying it
>from their hard-drives is no different from copying it from their web server.

Most jurisdiction have the concept of stealing data, so it doesn't have to
be a physical object to be "stolen property".  And the fact that a legitimate
possessor of the data is permitted to copy it isn't relevant to CJ.

>Perhaps the electrons on CJ's floppy were stolen from BDU's hard drives, but
>it would be awfully tough to prove anyone further down the line recieved
>those same stolen electrons from the BDU hard-drive.

Well, proof is indeed a possible problem, but could be gotten around in
various ways.  For example, CJ might testify against all those he sold
copies to in exchange for a reduced sentence.