Rabbis, Pirates and Goldman Sachs

Three respected rabbis spoke out on the issue of copyright piracy at a conclave in Israel, reports the IP Factor blog. Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, Rav Shlomo Dzialowski and Rav Yitzhak HaLevi Clab made presentations:

...All three authorities accepted that since Halacha considers Civil Law on monetary matters as binding anyway, Copyright and Contract Law were sufficient to obligate parties not to make illegal downloads or installations. The ... discussion is, therefore, theoretical, in the sense that Talmudic or halakhic sources are not strictly speaking required...

We applaud this effort at leadership, even if it means that rabbis just provide Judaic support for existing civil law. That's welcome, it's good citizenship, we need more of it....more on the meeting here ...

And while we are on the subject of pirates, the Borowitz Report, hilariously rips into Goldman Sachs with this take down (hat tip to Mimi):

Somali Pirates Say They Are Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (The Borowitz Report) - Eleven indicted Somali pirates dropped a bombshell in a U.S. court today, revealing that their entire piracy operation is a subsidiary of banking giant Goldman Sachs.

There was an audible gasp in court when the leader of the pirates announced, "We are doing God's work. We work for Lloyd Blankfein."

The pirate, who said he earned a bonus of $48 million in dubloons last year, elaborated on the nature of the Somalis' work for Goldman, explaining that the pirates forcibly attacked ships that Goldman had already shorted.

"We were functioning as investment bankers, only every day was casual Friday," the pirate said.

The pirate acknowledged that they merged their operations with Goldman in late 2008 to take advantage of the more relaxed regulations governing bankers as opposed to pirates, "plus to get our share of the bailout money."

In the aftermath of the shocking revelations, government prosecutors were scrambling to see if they still had a case against the Somali pirates, who would now be treated as bankers in the eyes of the law.

"There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in fact, pirates," one government source said. "But if they're bankers, our hands are tied."