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Comment by StavrosK | Hacker News Reader

"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.

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