Read today about the following (shortened quote):
This morning, at around 05.00 UTC, Maersk Alabama, a 1,100 TEU container vessel, was attacked by pirates and presumed hijacked. The US flagged vessel has a crew of 20 US nationals and is owned and operated by Maersk Line, Limited in the US.
This made me recall a news article which I read a few weeks ago regarding another piracy attempt. The story included pictures where you could clearly see bullet holes, shattered bridge glass and a broken (presume by bullets) windscreen wiper. The master anonymously told that the only way they avoided being boarded was sheer luck.
I don’t want to go into the details about what can be done about piracy. What I would love is the abuse of calling copyright infringement ‘piracy’ to stop.
Juarez!
Every time I see news about Somalia piracy, I can only think of Barbary pirates.
AMEN! Though I don’t think it will happen because they can’t stop calling crackers, hackers.
+1 here
The use of the word piracy is to make it sound far more criminal than it actually is. Most cases of infringement are dealt with in civil courts yet they frame it as “criminal conduct”. It’s more akin to a parking violation than piracy IMHO.
easy, just ask the french “culture” minister…
draft a law that cuts internet access to pirates ^^
The term also used to define someone who stole technology from companies before they had been released. A software pirate (by definition) is someone doing corporate espionage and stealing product information before it is made available to the public and releasing their own version of it before the original creator.
But I do agree, applying this label to file sharers is absolutely wrong by definition and moral standing.
The usage of the term in English dates back to at least 1703. I found this out from Matthew Garrett, at http://mjg59.livejournal.com/102879.html
Search for ‘pirates’ in:
http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm
Don’t forget the reason, why most of the pirates in this area are actually pirates….
It’s our own western culture – robbing their natural resources (fish) in a way which destroyed their base for surviving – most of the people being pirates now are former fishermen.
Piracy there will not be stopped by sending armed troops there – it will be stopped by respecting their and our natural resources – in this case: simply fish!
For some reason your post made me think of this pirate song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AawQvD8L_h4
Not to detract from the seriousness of the quite real pirates that steal from ships. Don’t really agree with you on that calling people who illegally download, “pirates” is bad.
It just means the word got a new meaning, nothing much more.