On Sun, Nov 24, 2002, Tal Achituv wrote about "OT: right or wrong to copy proprietary software": > I need to write an essay about "is it right or wrong to copy proprietary > software" > > Can some of you please point me to good resources on the subject?
Several people have told you to look for resources about "stealing", but in fact this is incorrect: I am not aware of any country where illegally copying copyrighted software is considered "theft". Illegal, yes, theft no. There are hundreds of crimes in the law book, but not all of them are called "theft". What you're probably looking for is some background on the subject of copyright. It seems you're interested in the laws (what are people allowed to copy) and their history, and also in the moral justification for these laws (not just what is allowed and what is not, but also what is right and what is wrong). The "Universita Hameshuderet" is running now (Wednesdays, 8:30pm, Galaz) a lecture series on intellectual property (copyright and patents), which seems interesting and relevant. Two relevant lectures have already passed (about the moral aspects of copyright, what "entitles" someone a copyright and why, and the financial aspects of copyright), but I suppose the future lectures might be interesting too. In the future it might also be possible to get that lecture series in book form, but I don't know when or how. Lawrence Lessig gave in O'Reilly's Open Source Conference (July 2002) a very interesting presentation about the history of copyright and patent law, from the perspective of a free-software person (so that his conclusions would obviously be different from those that, say, Bill Gates, might have in giving a lecture on the same subject). You can find the mp3, presentation, and transcript in http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/ Good luck, and I'll be looking forward to reading what you write. -- Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Nov 24 2002, 19 Kislev 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Software is like sex, it is better when http://nadav.harel.org.il |it's free -- Linus Torvalds ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]