Re: Can you recommend any C programming books?

Walter Roberson wrote: 
In article <43665625$0$11073$e4fe514c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Skarmander  <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Without delving into the legalese too much, "felony" is a word reserved for grave criminal offenses (for suitable values of "grave"). Copyright violation is not one of them in any legal system I know of. 


The US Digital Millenium Copyright Act introduced a new offence
of "criminal copyright violation" in instances where the value of
the copied work exceeded a certain value (and the limit is low enough
to include most name-brand commercial items whilst excluding
most personal writings and home businesses.)

> Canada does not use the word 'felony', so technically nothing here is 
a felony under Canadian law. Copyright violation falls under
the Copyright Act, not under Canada Criminal Code, but the Copyright Act
provides for up to 5 years in prison per copyright violation offence.
When I searched the Considated Statutes And Regulations, I was unable
to find any information about what classes of offences in Canada result in
"a criminal record".

Yes, the DMCA did introduce a new class of offence beyond the common breach of civil law and heightened the penalties on a few others. In some cases and jurisdictions this might push a violation into the range of "felony" (those that use "felony" for any crime that is punishable by more than a year in prison, for example).

In any case, it's unlikely that merely owning an illicit copy of a book classifies as a serious crime in any jurisdiction, or indeed as a crime at all in most, let alone as a felony in those systems that make the distinction.

S.
.

Relevant Pages

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