Rabbaim: What about Dina Dimalchusa Dina
The law of the land would permit making a copy, as long as its not for commercial purposes.
Some people get mixed up between the the theft of physical and intellectual property. To physically steal a painting, you just pick it up and leave.
To intellectually steal a painting, you would have to copy it feature by feature, and then sell it to someone else. If you want to make your own copy theres nothing forbidding you. Just because someone arranged certain parts in a certain design to create the Ford Model T, does not mean you are stealing anything from Ford if you were to make and keep a replica.
To intellectually steal something, you have to profit financially from the sale of someone else’s idea. Meaning if I pirate cd’s and sell them to others, I stole the IP (intellectual property) of the artist and profited from what the artist may or should have. However, until then, the creator is not losing anything. Having a copyright does not make it illegal to reproduce the idea.
Another example. If I wanted to keep a copy of a certain article in a magazine I purchased, I would definitely be allowed to type up the article in Word and save it in my computer. The benefit of reading and having a copy of the article is not illegal. Selling the article to some magazine to be published, yes.