On Sat, Dec 02, 2000 at 02:54:24AM -0700, John Galt wrote: > On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 10:58:36PM -0800, Aaron Lehmann wrote: > > > Since when does intention have anything to do with breaking the law? > > > Negligence is also a crime. > > > > Categorically, no. There is such a thing as "criminal negligence" but it > > exists within specific legal contexts, typically those associatied with > > guardianship (health or day care workers, parents, etc.) > > > > Failure to zealously prosecute one's every possible avenue of recourse in > > enforcing one's own copyright is not an offense under U.S. law, nor, as far > > as I know, anywhere else. > > But it MAY neutralize the copyright, You're thinking of patents, not copyrights. Under US law, copyrights persist until they expire (now 75 years if held by a natural person, 95 years if held by a corporation) or are affirmatively abandoned.. > and you should know this. Actually, I know the contrary, which is demonstrative of your feeble grasp of the facts. > Neutralizing IP fits under the aegis of criminal negligence: the > guardianship of salable property is usually sufficent to trigger the > criminal statute. Utterly false. A for-profit corporation that fails to pursue copyright violations vis a vis intellectual property it holds might be subject to civil lawsuits from shareholders, but I think this falls under securities or financial law, not criminal law. I reiterate: it is not a criminal act to fail to pursue violations of one's own copyright. -- G. Branden Robinson | Yesterday upon the stair, Debian GNU/Linux | I met a man who wasn't there. branden@debian.org | He wasn't there again today, http://www.debian.org/~branden/ | I think he's from the CIA.
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