Comment by tptacek
12 years ago
Sophomoric semantic rationalization. Two different settings for copyright violation, but sure, just use synonyms and related concepts to make one seem bad and the other OK; gullible message board nerds ravenous for validation for pirating movies, music, and software will lap it up.
There's more than a semantic difference between moral and material interests. In fact most "internet hippies" I know wants strong moral protection for authors [0][1]. It's a fairly central concept in the copyright debate, not least since it's part of the universal declaration of human rights.
[0] http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/the-pirate-party-on-c... [1] http://the1709blog.blogspot.se/2012/05/pirate-party-plans-fo... [2] http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G06/400/60/PDF/G0...
No. If you have a contract to get paid for work, it really doesn't matter whether you "own" the end product in any meaningful way. You should get paid according to the terms of the contract, even if it was just a verbal contract.
And taking credit for someone's work is not remotely the same as copying it without their permission, attribution intact. Can you not tell the difference?