You would think that, after two months of trying to cram as much law into my head as I can, I would learn my lesson. However, my enlightenment hasn't kept me from committing one of the most basic of crimes – larceny.Actually, if you want to get technical about it, it’s not called larceny. In common law it’s called ‘trespass to chattels.’
Now the word ‘chattel’ reminds me of something you’d find in a toilet after a large meal. Exempli gratia: “Excuse me while I go take a chattel”, or "Who left the chattel floater?"
But for the purposes of our discussion, a chattel is a piece of property.
I have plenty of property. I have accumulated several chattels over the years. Most of them outside the toilet. I have a computer, lots of CDs, a television, microwave, guitars, etc. All of them chattels. But I have this compulsive habit of taking other's chattels.
For example, I grocery shop at K-Mart. K-Mart provides its shoppers with konvenient baskets with handles instead of their larger, wheeled karts. I am part of the 13-Item-Or-Less Klub, so I take advantage of using one of these K-Baskets every time I shop there. But these baskets are so konvenient, that instead of emptying the groceries into my trunk or backseat and returning the basket to the korral, I take it with me to my apartment so I can use it when karrying my parcels up to 13-G.
Then I then use the K-Basket around the house until my next shopping trip. I use only one basket. I justify it by saying that I’m just recycling the basket and not stealing it.
But when it comes down to it, I’m really just a krook. With kleptomania.
A chattel (snickering, thinking of toilets) also encompasses intellectual property. Therefore music and computer software are also chattels. Thus they are prey to my thievery. The Internet provides me the perfect opportunity to freely and anonymously take chattels whenever I get that old familiar itch to rob someone of their wealth.
I use a program called ‘Kazaa’. It is a file-sharing program similar to the now-defunct Napster that allows one to download music, movies and software.Trust me, I pirate so much stuff off Kazaa that I should start wearing an eye patch and a peg leg when I go online.*
Now various recording artists such have been extremely public about the pirating of their music and have gone as far as testifying in front of Congress. And I totally understand that every time I download a song or program that I’m robbing the industry and keeping the rich from getting richer, but that parrot on my should keeps egging me on.
But I also steal cable thanks to a billing discrepancy – free HBO, Cinemax and ESPN Classic.
And I have figured out a glitch in the computer printing system at school that credits our copy card account with 20 dollars at a time. Now what I'm going to do with $242 worth is anyone's guess, but if they ever accept copy card credit as currency, I'll make it rain, baby.
Furthermore (and my most profitable endeavor), when I return from visits home, I turn in out-of-state aluminum cans for a 10 cent reward at recycling locations.
So do these things make me a bandit, a criminal, an outlaw – a trespasser of chattels? Have I become so jaded to the law after eight weeks of study that I continue to break it on a consistent basis? Do I think that I’m above the law because of my knowledge of its workings? I live in virtual poverty as a struggling student and the little bit of reprieve from oppressive government student loan debt is downloading a free Metallica B-side that they don't sell anywhere in stores anyway. Does this make me a federal felon? I guess only my conscience can answer those questions.
But I can’t ponder those questions here. I have to go take a chattel.
(Snicker.)
But when it comes down to it, I’m really just a krook. With kleptomania.
A chattel (snickering, thinking of toilets) also encompasses intellectual property. Therefore music and computer software are also chattels. Thus they are prey to my thievery. The Internet provides me the perfect opportunity to freely and anonymously take chattels whenever I get that old familiar itch to rob someone of their wealth.
I use a program called ‘Kazaa’. It is a file-sharing program similar to the now-defunct Napster that allows one to download music, movies and software.Trust me, I pirate so much stuff off Kazaa that I should start wearing an eye patch and a peg leg when I go online.*
Now various recording artists such have been extremely public about the pirating of their music and have gone as far as testifying in front of Congress. And I totally understand that every time I download a song or program that I’m robbing the industry and keeping the rich from getting richer, but that parrot on my should keeps egging me on.
But I also steal cable thanks to a billing discrepancy – free HBO, Cinemax and ESPN Classic.
And I have figured out a glitch in the computer printing system at school that credits our copy card account with 20 dollars at a time. Now what I'm going to do with $242 worth is anyone's guess, but if they ever accept copy card credit as currency, I'll make it rain, baby.
Furthermore (and my most profitable endeavor), when I return from visits home, I turn in out-of-state aluminum cans for a 10 cent reward at recycling locations.
So do these things make me a bandit, a criminal, an outlaw – a trespasser of chattels? Have I become so jaded to the law after eight weeks of study that I continue to break it on a consistent basis? Do I think that I’m above the law because of my knowledge of its workings? I live in virtual poverty as a struggling student and the little bit of reprieve from oppressive government student loan debt is downloading a free Metallica B-side that they don't sell anywhere in stores anyway. Does this make me a federal felon? I guess only my conscience can answer those questions.
But I can’t ponder those questions here. I have to go take a chattel.
(Snicker.)
Originally written 10-21-02.
*Please note the statute of limitations for copyright infringement is three (and at the most five) years after the commencement of the crime. All files have been deleted and none were shared further. It was only a couple Everclear albums and a Ben Affleck movie and no one likes them anymore anyway.
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