okapi wrote:
Really, there is such a thing as reading too much between the lines.
It's not reading between the lines when it's exactly what you said.
A digital image is not property,
Intellectual property. Copyright is held on it by its creator- in this case, that would be the photographer or the subject, unless copyright is waived in the terms and conditions here- and reposting those photos without permission of the copyright holder is piracy.
The reason I'm making this point is that, as a citizen and a consumer, I think it is important to use precise terms to discuss the problems at hand, rather than adopting the propaganda terms of the SOPA supporters. The copyright cartels would have you associate one act that is essentially a legal and moral grey area, with one that is unambigously immoral and illegal, by using the same terms to cover both. That is not to say that there aren't illegal or immoral uses of copyrighted material, I'm just saying that none of these are, in any legal, linguistic or philosophical sense, theft. In short, my beef is with the semantics here, not the moral aspect.
It's language that I've been using for a good long while. The intent and meaning of it isn't really vague, and it's certainly not adopted from supporters of oppressive legislation.
