Re: Origin/meaning of "piracy"

From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" 
> 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.

Daniel,

As far as rust and dictionary allow it means something like: 'Oh imitator, slave to money (head of cattle, materialism), how much harder will you make our retirement (refuge in age time). How much will you leave untouched, how much will you wrongly  take (lick up), contrary to divine law [that is the meaning of nefasti]'.

;-) So morality was in play long before modern copyright law! I rest Horace's case...
 
> 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.

I call Horace in evidence against you ;-). Seriously there is a need to divide between strict law, and moral dimensions. I do try to. But that diminishes the meaning and importance of neither - so long as they are not confused in argument.

> 
> 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. 

But neither is such a point to be dismissed. Perhaps we can agree that they should be treated as part of a basket of reasoning.

>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? 

The problem here is you have generalised when we are arguing more specifically. 

>Is it sometimes immoral not to break the law (the Underground Railroad...) 

There are many situations where this is valid - but they are generally clear cut rather than arguable. Outstanding would be the situation for those brave Germans in Nazi Germany who courted, and often received, death by opposing. I think it rash to claim that right for more casual things like breaking the speed limit. 

> I'm just saying that I don't particularly care what the law is and I don't think I need to.

This approach is your choice, but you certainly could not plead ignorance if prosecuted on one of those.

Joseph


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