Quote:
Originally Posted by foreverwar
...Theft is theft - be it burgers, jewellery, bandwidth, or intellectual property. If you are going to do it, just do it - don't try to justify it with specious reasoning...
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Your post has the hallmarks of a Sunday sermon - uplifting and rousing, until you subject the words to some scrutiny.
Theft of burgers and jewellery deprives the rightful owner of their property. Theft of intellectual property deprives the rightful owner of earning money from the product of their intellect. In these examples the person is (or might be) out-of-pocket. But theft of bandwidth? What, precisely, is being stolen? "He took 2.47 gigabits, your honour." At what cost? And again, how is it theft if I am not entering my neighbours property to gain access to the signal? Or are you suggesting that uploading a few bits of data to his router is trespass?
If, on the train, I look over someone's shoulder and read their paper, is this theft?