piracy

Piracy is also used as a Newspeak smear word to associate sharing an infinitely renewable resource (usually software) with an actual heinous crime against actual people. It is this kind of dehumanizing that the SPA and the BSA used in their ad campaigns showing "respectable-looking" businessmen or ordinary people, and saying that yes, this is a common criminal, call our hotline and rat them out just like you would any thief or murderer.

Also, piracy is often a misnomer for counterfeiting, particularly music and software, which is a form of fraud.

Do not misuse the word piracy. If you do not like want to say "sharing," you may use the neutral term "illegal copying," or, as Webster 1913 suggests, "copyright infringement."

Webster 1913's definition is apt and correct.

Piracy is also used as a Newspeak smear word to associate sharing an infinitely renewable resource (usually software) with an actual heinous crime against actual people.

Do not misuse the word piracy.

"Sometimes used, in a quasi-figurative sense, of violation of copyright; but for this, infringement is the correct and preferable term."

I don't agree with software licensing either, and your node is good, but I felt this rebuttal was needed.

Pi"ra*cy (?), n.; pl. Piracies (#). [Cf. LL. piratia, Gr. . See Pirate.]

1.

The act or crime of a pirate.

2. CommonLaw

Robbery on the high seas; the taking of property from others on the open sea by open violence; without lawful authority, and with intent to steal; -- a crime answering to robbery on land.

⇒ By statute law several other offenses committed on the seas (as trading with known pirates, or engaging in the slave trade) have been made piracy.

3.

Abbott.

© Webster 1913.