Tresspass is a crime against rights in real property, not personal property, so strictly speaking, isn't theft.Wait, does that make trespass theft? Is sneaking into a theater theft? It seems to be in two ways, if both trespass and unauthorized viewing are theft.
A similar example: Unauthorized creation of a drug which is under patent.
Something which is different, at a glance: If I steal a car, the car has a described value which I'm denying the person who owns the care. If I make batches of a drug, I haven't deprived the owner of the drug patent the value of their patent, except to the degree that I've limited their sales of the drug. But, if I give the drug to people with very little money, that limits the lose to the patent holder.
Thx!
TomB
The rest all fall into acts under the broad umbrella of theft. They're all different enough they'd be covered under different statutes: sneaking into the movies would be tresspass and possibly some form of larceny (though unlikely); the car under GTA; the copied drug by patent law.
BTW, that you're giving the infringed-upon IP away doesn't shield you in IP cases...that you make a profit is not an element of the crime.
Part of the reason why many modern legal systems have those broad theft statutes is because it makes prosecution easier. Under the old common law, if you charged someone with robbery when they had actually committed burglary or larceny, they could walk on the charge, at least temporarily. With the umbrella style theft statutes, you charge theft, and as long as their actions meet one of the definitions, you're golden.
Lest you think its all cut & dried, consider robbery. In most legal codes, robbery is kept distinct from theft, even though it is essentially theft + force. But in the courts, the definition of "force" has been so construed to venture into territory that resembles larceny by trick.
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