Origin/meaning of "piracy"

On Oct 19, 2010, at 8:30 AM, [email protected] wrote:

> Posted by: "Lee Passey" [email protected]   wlpassey
> Let's see, have you robbed or committed illegal violence at sea or on the
> shores of the sea? Raped, murdered, pillaged or plundered, returning to a
> ship? If not, then you're not a pirate.

Apparently not. My desk dictionary (AHD3) gives "3. One who makes us of or reproduces the work of another without authorization" as the third meaning of the word "pirate."

> Posted by: "joseph harris" [email protected]   joe9438
> As I recall, it was the 'pirates' who called themselves that, not their opponents. And isn't the Swedish site called Pirate Bay, or similar.

I think the use of the word "pirate" for "unauthorized copier" goes back a long way. I'm about 99% certain that Gilbert and Sullivan used that word to refer to unauthorized performances, without royalty payments, of their works in the United States. Very likely it was general usage in England back around that time. 

Good heavens, I just did a Google Books search, Advanced Search, Full View Only, Books, Find Results With All The Words "piracy copyright" and the first thing that popped up was "The law of copyright, in works of literature and art," Walter Arthur Copinger, 1870 and it has a lengthy technical legal discussion in which the word "piracy" is used... apparently as a technical legalism, not a colorful colloquialism. Click, click, it's used extensively throughout the book, apparently as a simple synonym for "infringement." I can't find a place where it's explicitly defined, but the opening of Chapter VI will show how it's used:

"CHAPTER VI.
INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT.

'O imitatores, servum pecus!'
'Quid nos dura refugimus 
AEtas ? quid intactum nefasti
Liguimus?'
                     Horace.

The question must obviously arise somewhat frequently, what is, and what is not, a piracy...."

(Can anyone translate that Horace?)

So the use of the word "piracy" to mean "infringement" is pretty legitimate. 

That said, I am sure we all recognize that it does not clarify matters to equate copyright infringement with theft. That's rhetorical "spin," propaganda designed to persuade, not an aid to clear thinking about either legality or morality.

Neither does it help to say that something is "against the law," or that "you can't choose which laws to obey," as if that were a crushing argument that settled the matter. We all pick and choose what laws we obey all the time. And a local ordinance does _not_ carry the same weight as criminal law. You can get into a crazy regress--is it immoral to break the law? Is it sometimes immoral not to break the law (the Underground Railroad...) Is it even _illegal_ to break the law, as in "jury nullification." I'm not suggesting that I'm engaging in high-minded civil disobedience when I photocopy the whole darned chapter, I'm just saying that I don't particularly care what the law is and I don't think I need to.


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