On Wed, Jan 10, 2001 at 12:22:10PM -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
You are if you take it knowingly (can you take something unknowingly?) and especially if with the intent to defraud the copyright holder of their rights.
Interestingly, copyright and patent differ on 'unknowingly taking'. If (as was recently mentioned) someone dupes some content and gives you a copy, you are not responsible -the copier was violating copyright, not you. The copier could 'unknowingly take' by simply mistaking the content for public domain. But patents are different. If sell you a chip, and you build a board with it, and Joe build a system with your board, and that chip turns out to be infringing a patent, my chip, your board, Joe's system, everything that uses the infringing work is legal toast. (And could be stopped at the border if imported, which happened to an American FPGA vendor who uses TSMC.) This is a major practical problem e.g., in the selling of 'cores'. So anyway, its definately possible to 'unknowingly take' IP.