piracy

A Rose By Any Other Name

Stephen Dubner, the famed economist behind Freakonomics (an excellent book, btw), posed the question, is it time to rename 'Digital Piracy'?" The answer is an unequivocal "yes". Despite what Shakespeare said, sometimes a name can mean everything. I refuse to accept the word "piracy" as anything other than high-seas pillaging. I suppose one positive outcome of the recent surge in Somali piracy is that people are realizing that copyright infringement hardly warrants such a strong word, especially when we have a perfectly adequate one. Let's not let the geniouses at the RIAA, who've had a wonderfully successful program of suing their customers, dictate our terminology on the matter.

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