News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Documentation to set up a simple macOS VM in QEMU, accelerated by KVM. Parent comment

Re:Documentation to set up a simple macOS VM in QEMU, accele... by chii on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @09:11AM (#20222963)
most people don't understand the difference between a civil offence and a criminal offence (which is what i would use the term "illegal" to describe).

Violating a contract is not "illegal", but is a civil offense, and requires the other party to sue you to recover damages. Copyright infringement is also not "illegal", but is a civil offense (however, i do believe that a lot of copyright lobbies want to change copyright violations to be a criminal offence, so they won't need to sue, but instead use public prosecution to recover their damages).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Documentation to set up a simple macOS VM in QEMU, accele... by Hello71 on Wednesday June 19, 2019 @12:39PM (#20224836)
This is terrible legal advice. Criminal penalties for copyright infringement offenses have existed since at least 1897 in the United States, and at least 1921 in Canada.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Documentation to set up a simple macOS VM in QEMU, accele... by jlgaddis on Thursday June 20, 2019 @01:31PM (#20235161)
While I understand the point you were trying to convey WRT the differences between civil and criminal offenses, copyright infringement is not a particularly good example of this.

> The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment. [0]

[0]: https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime/piracy-ip...

[ Parent | on HN ]