There’s a popular view that piracy is not theft. But in UK law at least (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/crossheading/de...), although copyright infringement is a separate offence, it kind of is theft too, arguably. It would be interesting to know to what extent that’s been tested, here and elsewhere.
If I stole Coca Cola's recipe, or the design files for the new Nvidia chip, it wouldn't be theft then? Because they still have the original, they've not been deprived of it.
I think it would be theft and I think a jury would agree.
> If I stole Coca Cola's recipe, or the design files for the new Nvidia chip, it wouldn't be theft then?
If i steal something its theft tautologically. If i break into the coca cola vault and take a the physical copy of the recipe that is theft. If i hack into the coca cola IT infrastructure and copy a file that contains the recipe without deleting it, then it is not necessarily theft depending on jurisdiction.
> If I stole Coca Cola's recipe, or the design files for the new Nvidia chip, it wouldn't be theft then? Because they still have the original, they've not been deprived of it.
correct, it's not theft because it doesn't meet the definition of theft under the Theft Act
this is not difficult to understand, it's spelt in crystal clear unambiguous language in the GPs post
> I think it would be theft and I think a jury would agree.
you can think whatever you want, but it would never reach the point of a jury because the police wouldn't charge for theft and the CPS wouldn't prosecute for it either
because it isn't theft
now if you compromised a computer system to get those chip designs they might try under the Computer Misuse Act, but that's a different offence and not theft
There is no evidence that it harms sales, as the EU found out after spending over €300,000. Actually, it leads more towards the idea that overpricing hurts legal consumption far more. And lost sales are not theft anyway, neither is copying a file.
