> Do you think there could exist any possible logic by which some people would consider Corporation A to be committing a form of "theft"? I can't answer that a

> Do you think there could exist any possible logic by which some people would consider Corporation A to be committing a form of "theft"? I can't answer that as-asked. I am but one person; I do not represent anyone but myself and I'm not about to pretend to know what others may or may not think. But I will say that no, I do not consider this scenario to be theft. Nobody was stolen from. A physical item was purchased from another party, and the new owner of that item did what they wanted with it. If you or I or Corporation A buy one of these rare books and use it as toilet paper, or to cut up and make little paper boats out of, then: Still no theft. Furthermore, maybe I buy your grandfather's rare book from a yard sale and use it to learn about the amazing way he'd found to cure diabetes. Or I borrow a copy from the library. Either way: The book is legitimately in my hands and I'm reading it. I'm learning from it. I integrate that method (your grandfather's method!) into my little pea-sized brain's model of life, the universe, and everything. And then: I write about the method I learned about. Maybe I publish a zillion copies and scatter them as leaflets that blanket the Earth, or I make one single-copy gilded print that I sell for a zillion dollars, or I set the scribes forth at dawn to duplicate it onto scrolls of Charmin to use as toilet paper. That's still not theft. In terms of copyright (which is also not an issue of theft): Copyright doesn't protect ideas. Perhaps it should, but it does not.