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Pam is a Board Member of the Open Source Initiative and the principal of Chestek Legal in Raleigh, North Carolina. She works with creative communities, giving practical legal advice on branding, marketing, and protecting and sharing content. Pam has authored several scholarly articles, has a legal blog at Property, Intangible, and was formerly an adjunct professor at Western New England College School of Law.
Authored Comments
Do you consider counterfeit hard goods to be "theft"?
No, it wasn't a trick question from a lawyer, I was just curious if your definition was consistent in both situations. I guess the "it's not theft unless you take my tangible property" purists would say that counterfeited hard goods aren't theft, either. I agree with you that the labels shouldn't matter, but the problem is when labels are used to draw analogies that perhaps aren't apt. I don't think taking someone's tangible property is the same as making a copy of someone's tangible property, so to the extent that labeling both cases "theft" makes you believe the two situations should be handled the same we've gone off-track. But I think your position that, no matter how we label it, you should have control over and profit from the distribution/sale/use of your product is a perfectly legitimate one.