To deal with the actual question raised in the discussion first: scottstef, I think you should have mailed the student first. A discreet message, possibly through an anonymous remailer, explaining that you had noticed he was doing something wrong, but you thought you should give him a chance to correct his mistake before invoking potentially damaging official action.

And the thing that no-one has mentioned is that someone can come to this website and receive the same advice he would find in one of these books, but for free.

Tricky isn't it? Forums and discussion groups have always been a hassle for people IRL (In Real Life). You get people posting the harsh truth about things, and you have experts here giving away advice for free that would literally cost hundreds of dollars if you walked into their office.

It's a different world on the web. People just impose their favourite philosophy on the issue, and declare that it's right. We've already had people accuse each other of working to bring police states into existance, others are apparently working to bring the country (America, of course) into chaos and anarchy. All this over some pirated words!

I may have been reading to much anarchist literature, but the idea of owning an idea, or even the expression of an idea strikes me as being absurd. It really seems to be "1,000 pennies for your thoughts". It gets to the point where you can't have a conversation about computers in the tea room because everyone's afraid of having their IP (Intellectual Property - their ideas) nicked. I don't have a better answer, so I'm not going to claim that my viewpoint is right, just different.

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Jeremy
Fall in love with love itself.