On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 7:13 PM, Matt Lee <[email protected]> wrote: > Piracy is the act of attacking ships. > > If you're talking about unauthorized copying, there is a difference > between individual unauthorized copying for personal use and the > commercial widescale copying for profit. > > I don't think there's anything to suggest that the pirate bay operators > actually made money from what they've done, in fact I'm sure they've > made a loss -- operating servers, maintaining them, etc costs money. > > >
Actually, the OAD's third definition for piracy reads "the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work." This use of the term dates back to the 17th century. Regarding free culture meaning we don't have to pay for everything, the OAD's first definition is "not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes." Actually, it doesn't speak of the sense of "not costing anything" until definition five. When the uninitiated hear of the free culture movement, they assume that it is probably a movement involving a removal of restrictions of some variety, presumably restrictions related to culture. This is not an unreasonable assumption to make--when we, as humans, name things, we frequently give them relevant names. It helps us remember, and it helps us quickly identify the purpose. Names, and words, matter. The men behind TPB were flippant--indeed, they are famous and roundly admired for this fact. Why wouldn't they name their website something suitably flippant? It seems utterly out of character. Of course, I'm not exclusively basing my assessment of TPB's functionality on its name--I'm also basing it on what everyone I know who used it used it for--I'm merely pointing out what I feel is a prety significant incongruity. -- RM rsmason.net dreamersoften.blogspot.com _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
