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Comment by jakeva | Hacker News Reader

Is it breaking the law though if nobody comes forward to claim a violation?

A related question: What happens when IP maximalists succeed in changing this from civil law to criminal law?

Someone might be willing to risk damages -- all the more so if they were actually limited to direct demonstrable loss rather than absurd... "presumed / possible / theoretical knock-on" loss amounts. But criminal prosecution?

Along with IP rights should come responsibilities, especially with items that have become part of common culture and dialog. If you don't fairly represent those rights to the culture/society, you should lose them.

In the patent world, IIRC, you can't simply use a patent to take a technology "off the market" / out of use altogether. (I'm no lawyer, and maybe I'm wrong, but isn't there language in the legislation mandating licensure under various scenarios?)

Neither should that apply to published works.

> What happens when IP maximalists succeed in changing this from civil law to criminal law?

It already is criminal law, and has been for ages.

Copyright as way of trade - selling burnt DVDs, charging access to a torrent site, showing films without the correct permissions, etc - would all fit under the criminal bits of UK law. I'd be surprised if the US was any different.

"Is it illegal to kill a person if she has no family or friends?"

Poor comparison. It's illegal to deprive a living person of their future by murder. Showing a copyrighted work of which nobody claims the rights only deprives the copyright owner of their rights, and (assuming they even still exist) if they have failed to recognize the existence of their rights to the property then in my opinion no wrong was done. A movie's rights are not a living, feeling and breathing being that can be murdered.

I was giving an example of law-breaking that's still law-breaking even if nobody reports a violation. I don't know if it's specifically true for copyright infringement, but your question could have been construed more generally, and the fact that there are actions that are illegal even though nobody wants to report the violation shows that there is precedent.

Well that's a more nuanced philosophical discussion for which murder is a poor example. A better one would be something like stealing a candy bar from a grocery store. A found body, or a reported missing person, would yield a response from local law enforcement if the perpetrator could be linked in any way. An example of a stolen candy bar the grocer never noticed missing more directly targets the question of 'if I don't get caught, does it matter'?

Anyway, the question here isn't whether you get caught. The question is whether it's actually illegal if there is no copyright holder that anyone knows of, and one doesn't come forward with a legitimate claim. Will law enforcement charge you with a crime?

I'm not a lawyer and have no experience with law, but I do love free (and legally so) movies, so I'm genuinely curious about this.

Yes

But does it matter?

Yes, because when you break it you suddenly create a strong incentive for the original copyright holder to be found

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