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Pirates Steal Ships, Not Songs

If you copy this post and pass it off as your own, that’s called plagiarism. If you illegally download a Freakonomics e-book for yourself, that’s downlifting (or, more traditionally, bootlegging). If you want to be a pirate, downloading a bootleg of Hook isn’t going to get you there — you’re going to have to actually go out onto the high seas and commit yourself some illegal acts of violence or depredation. Confusing piracy at sea with “piracy” on the internet, according to Copycense, is misleading “public relations blather.” K. Matthew Dames furthers the case in this paper, investigating the etymology of piracy and finding just how far the word has strayed from its original meaning. [%comments]


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