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Comment by marcodiego | Hacker News Reader

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marcodiego

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> They're not stealing, they're disrespecting a license.

Breaking into someone's car and riding off isn't stealing, just disrespecting the concept of ownership.

The difference is that theft is a criminal offense, where you’ll be prosecuted by the state.

Violation of a software license is not a criminal offense but a breach of contract, opening you up to civil suits. So, it’s up to the rights holder to file suit and drag you to court for damages.

One breaks the criminal law, another breaks the civil law. Both break the law.

Both break the civil law , you can absolutely sue the thief for damages for lost property.

Typically this is not done because it is not worth the lawyer expenses as recovery chances are pretty slim unless it is a kleptomaniac billionaire maybe , instead you claim insurance to recover on your losses.

Similarly copyright theft is also same as any other property theft, you can charge under criminal law as well , typically success rate is not high , but people have gone to prison over pirating movies or bootlegging stuff etc

So what’s the case law for violations of the GPL? Did anyone get criminally convicted prosecuted for violating any software license at all, and was anyone convicted? I’m only aware of civil suits in this regard.

There are some in the civil side in last decade or so.

Of the top of my head

- the BusyBox suits from early 2010s

- FSF vs Cisco on Linksys code

- McHardy case over in germany

- Artifex case over Ghostscript

If this magically didn't interfere in my ability to use the car in any way, I'd have no problem of anyone stealing it

Depriving the original owner of the right to enjoy the specific property is a core, distinguishing tenet of "stealing."

Normally, a person only has one car - it's not infinitely replicable.

See also: you wouldn’t download a pizza.

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