Gee,
Navychop, I liked you; I thought we were friends
.
So,
Navychop, you have never made a cassette copy of music, let someone borrow it, or and played it at a party, which would constitute a "public performance"?
You have never made a VHS recording of a TV show, then after watching allowed your neighbor or relative or any other person to take it to watch at home or in the RV because the expressed interest in it or asked to "borrow" it or shown the tape to a few people in a group that would constitute a "public performance"?
We hope you've never made a recording of any major league sporting event and further dared to play it back or shared it later with another member of the household or neighbor
" . . . without the expressed written permission of Major League (fill in the blank)?
And all those guys who pay for the boxing or whatever sports PPV and throw a party inviting a large number of friends to come and see the fight that would easily constitute a "public performance" are all "thieves" as well? Certainly the parties were each person chips in a few dollars to cover the cost of purchasing the very expensive PPV event that the host could not otherwise afford to buy which constitutes "charging admission" to the prohibited "public performance" event making the host guilty of double "thievery" (one can steal the same thing twice?). One would think those who paid "admission" would also be guilty of financing the prohibited "public performance" and would share the same cell with the host. Somebody please call Gerry Spence!
Should anyone ever pay you back the hundreds or $2,000 they borrowed from you for the mortgage or whatever good reason, you will report that income to the IRS, won't you, along with any winnings from your BINGO nights? Oh, and if you've ever won anything in a raffle, you did report that to the IRS and paid tax on its value, right? Even a $50 cash prize is taxable income, but you knew that already, I'm sure, because you have reported, otherwise you would be a tax evader, a different form of "thief".
Don't play cards for
ANY amount of money because that is
gambling, and if you should win at the game of cards, you would be both a common criminal and tax evader (higher class of criminal?), presuming you forgot to declare your winnings to the IRS or your state, for that matter.
And please don't dash our high esteem of you by having ever sang
"Happy Birthday" and certainly not in a setting if more than a few people present, say at a birthday party, for example, for you would be in violation of copyright without having paid the royalty to the composers of said "
Happy Birthday to you" and guilty of a further violation for doing so in what constitutes a "public performance." Failure to make the royal payment is food off the "
Happy Birthday" composer's table, you "thief". Say it aint so.
And we would believe you if you told us all that you do indeed follow the law to the letter always without exception and have never sang "
Happy Birthday to you" and are the perfect human being who never omits because anyone with a post filled with such moral outrage as yours proclaiming
"thief", is so persuasive in its adamant stance that we have to conclude that you are the only human in existence who has never transgressed any law no matter how trivial nor inconsequential in doing something without the
intent (
intent is often the trump card in law) of violating copyrights, or any law. Such infallibility qualifies one as Pope. So, please issue your encyclical from your throne at the holy see of copyright jurisdiction regarding copying content for any purpose. We all look forward to reading it and your next moral pronouncement on taking more than one napkin from the coffee bar at Starbucks. But I'm more interested in how you morally reconcile ever having sung "
Happy Birthday to you." Ye best be getting ye calculator and make those back royalty payments to the person you "stole" from.
Beware of those proclaiming to be holy than we, for he may be the least holy.