Editorial piracy

Editorial piracy

Posted Sep 4, 2004 19:50 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)
In reply to: Record labels' man in Washington (News.com) by cpm
Parent article: Record labels' man in Washington (News.com)

How in the heck copying software became piracy I have no clue.

Easy: the term "pirate" was commonly used by writers when referring to editors who did not pay them royalties. Any good dictionary will show you that meaning (e.g. Webster 1913). Then it was used in music for unofficial live recordings published by small companies, usually with very poor quality ("pirate editions").

Finally the editors tried to reverse it and applied it to unauthorized copying made by users, with mixed success. Many musicians have a hard time collecting royalties from big record companies, so it is obvious to them who the real pirates are.

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