Taking a little is OK but a lot isn't

[Frank Cross]

Literally, I think eating one grape or taking one pen from office supplies
would be theft.  It would never be prosecuted but still would be
technically illegal.  I'm not sure it's a good analogy to taking one copy
of a free paper.

A closer analogy might be where the grocery store has a large pile of
samples explicitly free for the taking.  Some college student comes by and
eats them all, making them his free dinner.  Absent some clear proscription
on this behavior, I don't think it is theft.

OTOH, in Eugene's other analogies, where a party takes all the free samples
and markets them for money, my gut still says this action should be theft.
If the student piles the free samples in a bag, takes them outside the
store and sells them for a quarter apiece, that just seems like theft.  Can
a crimlaw expert advise whether a crime could properly be based on this
sort of distinction in the use of a product?


Frank Cross
Herbert D. Kelleher Centennial Professor of Business Law
CBA 5.202
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712