Quote:
Originally Posted by rogue_librarian
Just one closing statement: Whoever insists on calling violations or infringements of copyright "theft" usually doesn't know better--or, increasingly, has a hidden agenda. It's really very much like "piracy" again, which used to be reserved for violent crimes committed on the high seas until the content industry began to apply it indiscriminately.
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The use of the word "Pirate" to refer to unauthorised copying has a very long history. Its first recorded usage was in 1703, by Daniel Defoe, regarding the unauthorised printing and distribution of a poem he wrote, called "The True-Born Englishman". In the introduction to the 2nd edition of the poem, he wrote:
Quote:
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"I should have been concerned at its being printed again and again by pirates, as they call them, and paragraph-men; but would that they do it justice and print it true according to the copy, they are welcome to sell it for a penny if they please."
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ie, he wasn't concerned so much with the fact that they'd distributed it without his permission, but that they'd made
mistakes in it.