ot-free as he had. If one carefully examines different parts of Stearns' ruling in the case, one gets a vivid picture of the contradictions and paradoxes in both intellectual property law itself and in people's attitudes towards it. At one point in his decision, Stearn goes out of his way to emphasize how the "limited nature of the property interest conferred by copyright stems from an overriding First Amendment concern for the free dissemination of ideas." Stearns quotes Harry Blackmun's words from a Supreme Court decision in an earlier case. Blackmun, treading carefully along a fine line between the different kinds of "rights" accorded to different kinds of "owners," stresses that infringement of copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion or fraud. . . . The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially liken infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion or fraud.However, near the end of his decision Stearns seems to speak in a different tone. Here is his description of the defendant and what the defendant did: "One might at best describe his actions as heedlessly irresponsible, and at worst as nihilistic, self-indulgent, and lacking in any fundamental sense of values. Criminal as well as civil penalties should probably attach to willful, multiple infringements of copyrighted software even absent a commercial motive on the part of the infringer." Is Stearns being downright inconsistent here, or just sort of vague? If copyright infringement so "plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion or fraud," what exactly is the "fundamental sense of values" whic...
