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Posts: 278 | Thanked: 303 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Norwich, UK
#42
Originally Posted by RevdKathy View Post
So let's see... you put your debit card into a bank machine, and I clone it. You get your card back, in the same state you (voluntarily) put it in the machine and can still continue to use it. So I've taken nothing from you - no foul and no crime, right?

Except that I can also use the clone of your card to achieve the same purpose you use it for - namely removing money from your bank account.
This analogy seems rather broken - In itself, I couldn't give much of a toss whether someone had cloned my debit card, were it not for the fact that they cloned it to enable them steal my money (ie take it from me, meaning I no longer have the money theyve taken that I previously did have, ie theft).
Cloning the card itself isn't theft, and it's why card cloners arent prosecuted for theft, theyre prosecuted for fraud.
This differs from piracy (or the rather bizzare analogy brought up in this thread of a duplication machine being taken into a shop to clone items then leave again) in that in the case of piracy, certainly for 95% of people the cloned item itself (which was copied, not stolen) is the end goal, whereas in the card cloning analogy the cloned item (which was also copied, not stolen) was cloned with a further purpose in mind, ie enabling theft of money.

There's no justification for piracy and saying "well it's not stealing" doesn't defend it, but in a factual sense it *isnt* stealing, and people consistently trying to hammer the piracy argument by saying that it is are tiresome