If you copy this post and pass it off as your own, that’s called plagiarism. If you illegally download a Freakonomics e-book for yourself, that’s downlifting (or, more traditionally, bootlegging). If you want to be a pirate, downloading a bootleg of Hook isn’t going to get you there — you’re going to have to actually go out onto the high seas and commit yourself some illegal acts of violence or depredation. Confusing piracy at sea with “piracy” on the internet, according to Copycense, is misleading “public relations blather.” K. Matthew Dames furthers the case in this paper, investigating the etymology of piracy and finding just how far the word has strayed from its original meaning. [%comments]
Pirates Steal Ships, Not Songs
and 
. You can also watch it on 
It seems as if the word ‘piracy’ has been, um, hijacked.
Downlifting sounds really bad, and doesn’t make much sense in the context. It’s copyright infringement, that’s all.
*teehee*
I’m an IP attorney, and my problem with “downlifting” is that it makes the dubious connection between tangible goods and intangible property. It ignores the fact that not all “downlifting” would be illegal/unlawful when the same “defenses” would not be present for shoplifting. Really simply, would it be “downlifting” if you made two copies of your ebook for your own use?
IP issues are not readily amendable to analogy to tangible goods/crimes. You don’t trespass or steal or take copyrighted material: you infringe an exclusive right.
I don’t disagree that “piracy” is at least as bad description of copyright infringement (probably more so). But introducing yet another term does not make the situation better.
Terminology aside, sharing digital files of any sort of content is far from the theft that ‘piracy’ and ‘downlifting’ imply. These are infinite goods, there is no cost to anyone for the creatuin of an extra copy and the argument that the extra copy is always a ‘lost sale’ is complete bunk.
@English Clergyman: Well said. But, I will sweat it. Put me down as a vocal minority.
Referring to copyright infringement as piracy is so ridiculous that no one would ever confuse the two meanings. When you use a word similar to shoplifting the division is not so clear. But it needs to be. Shoplifting requires the product to be removed from the store. Illegal copying does not.
It is just as “similar but not identical” to trespassing (using property without permission) and counterfeiting (making a copy and presenting it as the original.)
Was downlifting named purposefully so that eventually people could begin referring to the actual bootlegging as uplifting? You know, since downloading copyrighted material isn’t illegal but uploading it is….
Strikes me almost as much as all the reporting that the RIAA was going after ‘downloaders’, since everyone can say to themselves ‘oh goodness! I’ve downloaded on the interwebs too! they want to outlaw downloads!’ when they where actually going after people who ‘uploaded’ or ‘distributed’ their copyrighted content.
This is an absurd argument. “Piracy” as a term for copyright infringement dates to the 1800′s, back when it referred to ripping off sheet music. Can’t anybody see that “piracy” can encompass many types of stealing, and thinking that it must for all time refer *only* to hijacking ships is childish.
Getting all wound around the axle about whether a term now (or for a hundred years) is different than it was 300 years ago is a distraction from all the real issues.
By the way, I hope RIAA gets ground into dust and forgotten by history, but that doesn’t change that this is a stupid argument.
All the bad news out of Somalia is really going to put a damper on Talk Like A Pirate Day this year.
Yarrr?