<story><title>Pirate Party Germany gets into the parliament for the state of Berlin</title><url>http://web.piratenpartei.de/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Luyt</author><text>Arrrr, me hearties, I still can&apos;t get used to the term &apos;pirate&apos; that is slapped upon people who copy digital music.&lt;p&gt;A pirate is a criminal at sea, who inititiates violence against sea travelers. Pirates steal property (like vessels) and valuables, and it&apos;s not uncommon that pirates &lt;i&gt;murder&lt;/i&gt; their victims, or take them hostage for a ransom.&lt;p&gt;How the term &apos;pirate&apos; ever could be used to denote kids swapping MP3&apos;s, is unfathomable to me. The analogy is ludicrous. But maybe it could be because pirate (the seafaring kind) communities in the 18th century had a liberal approach to freedom, which was unusual in that time, and maybe that extrapolates somehow to the liberal file swapping in our digital age. Which doesn&apos;t, by the way, harm anyone, nor takes away things from people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wheels</author><text>Piracy has been a term for unauthorized copying of works for over 400 years [1][2].  It&apos;s not an analogy; it&apos;s just one of the meanings of the word.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Piracy.22&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Pirac...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/yeare.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/yeare.html&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Pirate Party Germany gets into the parliament for the state of Berlin</title><url>http://web.piratenpartei.de/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Luyt</author><text>Arrrr, me hearties, I still can&apos;t get used to the term &apos;pirate&apos; that is slapped upon people who copy digital music.&lt;p&gt;A pirate is a criminal at sea, who inititiates violence against sea travelers. Pirates steal property (like vessels) and valuables, and it&apos;s not uncommon that pirates &lt;i&gt;murder&lt;/i&gt; their victims, or take them hostage for a ransom.&lt;p&gt;How the term &apos;pirate&apos; ever could be used to denote kids swapping MP3&apos;s, is unfathomable to me. The analogy is ludicrous. But maybe it could be because pirate (the seafaring kind) communities in the 18th century had a liberal approach to freedom, which was unusual in that time, and maybe that extrapolates somehow to the liberal file swapping in our digital age. Which doesn&apos;t, by the way, harm anyone, nor takes away things from people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>morsch</author><text>Note that this usage of pirate goes back several centuries, e.g. see these entries from the OED:&lt;p&gt;1668    &lt;i&gt;J. Hancock Brooks&apos; String of Pearls (Notice at end)&lt;/i&gt;,   Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies.&lt;p&gt;1703    &lt;i&gt;D. Defoe True-born Englishman in True Collect. I. Explan. Pref. sig. B3v&lt;/i&gt;,   Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates.&lt;p&gt;The term is metaphorical in origin, and in that regard I don&apos;t think it&apos;s particularly outrageous. If you say that he&apos;s &quot;a lion of a man&quot; you&apos;re not arguing that the person in question has got large teeth, a mane, or hunts antelope.</text></comment>