Introduction

“Theft” is used here in the sense of the second meaning defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which states, “the taking of property unlawfully.” “Piracy” is used here in the sense of the third meaning defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, which states, “an unauthorized appropriation and reproduction of another's production, invention, or conception, esp. in infringement of a copyright.”

The computer has made possible new forms of stealing and unauthorized appropriation of property. We will consider a number of them in this chapter. There is no claim that this is an exclusive list of such forms, but hopefully enough will be included here to provide a sense of how the Internet has changed things in regard to theft and piracy.

Cybersquatting

Not the most transparent of all technical terms, “cybersquatting” means the acquiring of a domain name on the Internet with the hope of selling it, in turn, to a business or individual who might be desirous of using it. The closer such a domain name is related to the name of a business or individual who is its prospective buyer, the better the chance the cybersquatter will have of selling it to such an entity and the higher the price the cybersquatter might be able to get for it. The relationship of the name to the potential buyer might be that the domain name is just one letter off from the business name of the potential buyer or it might be that the domain name incorporates a phrase that is associated with the business or professional activity of the potential buyer.