Quote:
There are five basic rights protected by copyright, and they are sometimes called the five "pillars" of copyright. The owner of copyright has the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
* To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
* To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
* To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
* To publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
* To publicly display the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.
A violation of any of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder is said to be a copyright infringement.
I added the bold and underlines to show the points that coincide with my point above. Only the original author has the right to distribute his/her work and can give others permission to have such a right (a license). As is the case with software, we don't 'own' software, we are licensed to used it, but we are NEVER licensed to distribute it, that is copyright infringement and has yet to hold up in court; regardless if another person owns the same game you are not allowed to provide it to him/her or anyone else on the basis that "if they own it they can download it legally".
