Let me take an example:

I live in California, USA. There is a state law that illegalizes stopping on the side of the road and picking so many flowers. Now if you stopped and picked one, it''d be illegal but no one would care. There was one person, though, that got put in jail or something for practically harvesting 300 roadside flowers! (I don''t know why he did it, but he did; idiot.)

So there is a fine line that divides what breaks the law and should be punished and what breaks the law and should not be punished. This is based on the practical, human mind. I used to draw Ninja Turtles when I was younger. Does that mean the creator of Ninja Turtles is going to sue me? Of course not. If I sold them to friends, would he sue me? No.

Now I am at such an age where if I took, reproduced, packaged, and sold copyrighted material to people nationwide in a house converted to a miniature warehouse, then I would be charged.

What if I did not sell them? Well I''d still be packaging and distributing them nationwide, and so I might be threatening the franchise. In that case, the owners of the product could and probably would sue me.

Now there''s the case of software. There are two ways to pirate software: 1) Copy the box art and everything and sell the product like it was when you bought it at a store; 2) Copy only the files and distribute them for download over the Internet.

Now it seems to me that it is all in how the product is redistributed that determines whether the copiers should be charged or not. If the physical software-- the box, the manual, and the disc-- is copied and sold, then if the franchise''s owners find out, they WILL sue the copiers. If it is posted on the Internet for free on, say, download.com, the owners are likely to ignore it unless it really gets out of hand. If it ever ends up on warez or something, the owners will demand an explanation and may even sue you (even if warez actually took your copied product and put it on their website w/out YOUR permission, because you don''t have permission to take their registered trademarks).

If it goes on every download site and is downloaded by millions of people daily from all over the world, the owners will raise a few eyebrows. They will watch the situation and if they decide it is threatening their franchise, they will take action. If they decide that is actually HELPING the franchise, they definitely not bother it.

This is a tender situation, as if the company immediately sues the copiers without deeply looking into the situation, they may lose faithful fans. If they take too long and sue after the copies have been on the market for a year or so, it will be the same outcome. In the end, it''s up to a legal judge to determine who is truly in the right.

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Caffeine

This sounds like a case for "Don''t Sue People Panda"

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lol