Comment by JumpCrisscross
11 hours ago
> Imaginary property is imaginary
Property, a social construct, is always imaginary. The ship on IP, from insider trading laws to copyright, has sailed. If the only argument against a potential crime is IP isn’t real, the person is probably wrong.
This is all very well but exactly what type of IP is CCTV footage? It's not copyrighted. It's not patented. It's not trademarked. ...trade secret?
Copyright
CCTV footage is not a creative work, it doesn't even have an author.
Stealing physical property deprives its original owner of it. The same can't be said of IP.
So what? That at most means they’re slightly different flavors of the abstraction we call “property”.
And owning property — even physical property — entails having the right to prevent other people from using it, even in ways that don’t deprive you of it. You can’t drive my car without permission, even if you bring it back in perfect condition and I wasn’t planning on using it that day.