The term "piracy" has a long history in publishing:
http://eduscapes.com/bookhistory/int...property/3.htm
Quote:
Piracy has been a problem since the beginning of book production. In Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates, Adrian Johns (2010) states that during the 17th century, the term piracy became associated with "intellectual purloining".
According to Johns (1998, 32), the term piracy was coined by John Fell, bishop of Oxford
"to describe the rapacious practices of London printers and booksellers. It had a technical meaning: a pirate was someone who indulged in the unauthorized reprinting of a title recognized to belong to someone else by the formal conventions of the printing and bookselling community. But it soon came to stand for a wide range of perceived transgressions of civility emanating from print's practitioners."
Johns notes that by the end of the century the word is prominent in the writings of Addison, Congreve, Defore, Gay, Ward, and Pope begin used to describe someone who unjustly copies another's work. Johns pinpoints the use as beginning around 1660-1680 during the English Revolution. According to Adrian Johns (1998, 5),
"if an early modern reader pick up a printed book - De Natura Libri, perhaps - then he or she could not be immediately certain that it was what it claimed to be, and its proper use might not be so self-evident. Piracy was again one reason: illicit uses of the press threatened the credibility of all printed products. More broadly, ideas about the correct ways to make and use books varied markedly from place to place and time to time. But whatever the cause, it is not easy for us to imagine such as realm, in which printed records were not necessarily authorized or faithful."
Although most people are aware of the economic loss from piracy, Johns (1988) noted that allegations of piracy also threatened the reputations of authors and the credibility of their ideas.
"Piracy and plagiarism occupied readers' minds just as prominently as fixity and enlightenment. Unauthorized translations, epitomes, imitations, and other varieties of "impropriety" were, they believed, routine hazards. Very few noteworthy publications seemed to escape altogether from such practices, and none at all could safely be regarded as immune a priori. It was regarded as extremely unusual for a book professing knowledge - from lowly almanacs to costly folios - to be published in the relatively unproblematic manner we now assume... If piracy was as widespread as commonly feared, then trusting any printed report without knowledge of those processes could be rash. Profound problems of credit thus attended printed materials of all kinds. Without solutions there could be few meaningful uses for books - and perhaps no durable reasoning from them" (Johns, 1998, 30).
If you're interested in learning more about the idea of literary piracy, skim Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates by Adrian Johns.
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Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Plus ça change...