In today’s Arutz-Sheva email, there is an article about how an Investigation into Police Brutality of protestors during the exile of Jews from Gush Katif was dropped. Despite lots of evidence (including eye-witness testimony, photos and video), the stated reason that the investigation was dropped is “lack of public interest”.
Yes, you got that right. Police officers were seen beating protestors while said protestors were being held by other officers. They placed demonstrators on rolls of barbed wire. This of course doesn’t matter. It is only a crime if there is “public interest” in it being a crime (and they are selective about who they decide is the “public” for these matters). It doesn’t matter what the law is. It doesn’t matter that police officers beat unarmed people who were not resisting arrest. As long as the public “doesn’t display enough interest”, it is perfectly fine.
This seems on about the same level as a conversation I had with someone in the office today. He admitted that he like to rent video games in order to make copies of them for himself. I asked him whether he cared that he was committing theft. He said that he did not (everyone else started to make other rationalizations about how his theft was really ok). I asked him whether he would walk into a store, pick up a game and walk out without paying for it. He said no. The reason: because he would be caught, but if he wouldn’t be caught, he might just take it.
What are we turning into? Do average people care anymore about doing what is right, simply because it is the right thing to do (and in converse, not doing what is wrong because it is the wrong thing to do)??
October 16th, 2005 at 9:18
I completely agree with your point and analogy. Well stated!
October 21st, 2005 at 2:03
There’s a difference between making unlicensed copies of software and shoplifting hard copies. When someone makes an unlicensed copy, everyone else will still be able to use the hard copy, and the only crime is copyright infringement (ie, the only victim is the person who holds the copyright). When someone walks into a video store and walks out with software hidden under his shirt, he hasn’t committed copyright infringement but he has committed theft (ie, the victim is the owner of that hard copy of the software), and additionally no one else will be able to use it.
Though both theft and copyright infringement are wrong, those two issues are not the same, and attempts to conflate them are typically MPAA or RIAA propaganda.
October 21st, 2005 at 7:32
NG – I hear what you are saying and it is a good distinction. The point that I was trying to make was not to emphasize the theft from the perspective of the copyright holder/store owner. I was trying to emphasize the responsibility of the individual not to steal – and in this case, this individual’s (and I believe society as a whole’s) total indifference to theft of copyrighted material (granted that the theft was only carried out through electronic means).