Pirates of the Pacific

Pirates of the Pacific Rim ABSTRACT The term piracy once referred simply to crimes at sea but Steve Cisler now also refers to widespread PIRACY AND THE PACIFIC crimes by which intellectual property is copied and sold or given away through electronic networks and in kiosks, shops and flea markets. Countries such as the U.S.A., whose origins were based on technol- he word pirate has its English roots in the 14th “cultural appropriation,” “file shar- ogy piracy, are now the most T protective. Companies that were century, when the Latin word pirata was used to describe the ing,” “imitative production,” “infor- once sued for infringement are Vikings. Popular culture, including movies and theme parks, mation commons,” “bio-piracy,” and now suing others. Piracy is cited has glorified the pirates of the 18th century, the so-called “copyleft.” as a source of income for Golden Age of piracy, especially the English pirates who at- Piracy takes place in every coun- criminal and extreme political tacked and plundered Spanish galleons. These pirates pre- try, at every level, with the involve- groups. Cultural appropriation sented an asymmetric threat to the Spanish; although they ment of consumers, designers, of traditional herbs, songs and art is not easily combated. Fake were not numerous, the pirates used stealth and superior ar- manufacturers, salespeople and gov- drugs and airline parts create maments to attack and plunder ships laden with spoils from ernments, even as legislators and safety issues that are not the New World. Between missions they hid out in secluded trade representatives beef up laws encountered with pirated books Caribbean coves. These pirates have become part of popu- and law enforcement organizations or DVDs. Some scholars and legal experts have called for lar culture, as have the characters portrayed by Errol Flynn, conduct raids and seek to curtail abandoning copyright or have Robert Newton, Charles Laughton and, most recently, Johnny such activity, which is estimated to proposed alternative schemes Depp: Captain Blood, Long John Silver, Captain Kidd and Cap- be 5–7% of total world trade [3]. In for intellectual property. tain Jack. Even as Disney Studios reaped profits from making addition, there are a massive num- a pirate into a hero in Pirates of the Caribbean, the parent com- ber of files being shared, not sold, pany worried about the other kind of piracy: copies of CDs by Internet users. Asa Hutchinson and DVDs churned out in various countries and sold all over of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that the world shortly after the movie’s first release in theaters. 2.6 billion songs are traded over file-sharing networks each Although there has been an increase in maritime piracy in month [4]. As bandwidth increases, ever-larger media files are the past few years in Asian shipping areas and near the failed being shared and Darknet [5] activities surge. While there has state of Somalia, this paper discusses only the forms of intel- been a great deal of media coverage of electronic piracy, which lectual property (IP) piracy that have become a dominant has been occurring since the days of electronic bulletin board issue in the world of international trade relations. Over the systems in the 1980s, almost anything of fame or value has been years, accusations of IP piracy have increased because of copied or appropriated. Apart from books, CDs and movies, changes in laws and increased enforcement. Today thousands consider these items: watches, apparel, sparkling wine, com- of consumers, large companies such as Google, terrorists, or- puter chips, fire extinguishers, guns, golf clubs, cell phones, ganized crime and small entrepreneurs have been accused of radios, prescription drugs, sunglasses, handbags, soaps, snow- acts of piracy, or at least copyright infringement. boards, water pumps, cigarettes, perfumes, art and antiques, As Doron Ben-Atar points out, the abstract notion of intel- indigenous art and crafts, identification cards, camping gear, lectual property emerged in Europe during the late medieval automobile and aircraft parts and the Chinese product seized period and early Renaissance, as artisan guilds protected their more by U.S. Customs than any other: batteries. Even shoe members’ power by restricting access to knowledge of techni- polish has been counterfeited, and in June 2004 the Coun- cal processes and operations of machines [1]. Pamela Long terfeiting Intelligence Bureau seized 12 tons of it in Kigali, explains that Venice passed the first patent law in 1447, rec- Rwanda. ognizing that “craft knowledge and inventions constituted property” and that “men of ingenuity”—especially glassmak- ers—were assets to Venice [2]. THE UNITED STATES AND PIRACY: By 1688 the term pirate had also come to mean someone who A SHORT HISTORY appropriated intellectual property, including music, written The United States is the site of both the duplication and sale works or an invention. Such people were known as “Land- of many counterfeit and pirated materials and of the sharing Pirates.” While the term pirate is usually pejorative, this pa- of copyrighted materials without a profit motive via the In- per employs it as a placeholder term for a deeply intertwined ternet. In addition, electronic auction networks such as eBay constellation of concepts and practices. This usage reflects the include independent sellers trafficking in counterfeit items attitude of the parties coining a term or phrase: think of the such as Tiffany jewelry, Calloway golf clubs and Burton snow- connotations of “knock-off,” “counterfeit,” “softlifting,” “fair boards [6]. U.S. industry and government are the driving use,” “bootleg,” “industrial espionage,” “Darknet,” “warez,” forces for the strengthening of laws protecting media content, physical products and other intellectual property from reverse engineering and copying. However, history reveals that the U.S.A. openly advocated intellectual piracy and had permis- Steve Cisler (librarian), Piracy and the Pacific Working Group Chair, 4415 Tilbury Drive, sive laws on these issues well into the late 19th century. Ben- San Jose, CA 95130, U.S.A. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Atar’s detailed work Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the ©2006 Steve Cisler LEONARDO, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 377–380, 2006 377 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/leon/article-pdf/39/4/377/1573134/leon.2006.39.4.377.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 Origins of American Industrial Power states, tional copyright regime until 1890. How- Timothy Wu sees this technology de- “Technology piracy was often undertaken ever, once technology began flowing out velopment as the result of a “team ef- not only with the full knowledge, but of- of the U.S., the country began its push to fort” of “passive, enabling technologists ten with the aggressive encouragement strengthen international IP laws, a policy paired with infringing users” who are ex- of officials of the federal and state gov- that continues to the present and is as ploiting the drastic reduction in prices ernments” [7]. Furthermore, much a part of U.S. foreign policy as the for recorders, computers, burners and war on terrorism. bandwidth to acquire and disseminate PIRACY AND THE PACIFIC by the time the revolution started, im- proving the level of American technol- In the 20th century there were inter- content [13]. Legislators have listened ogy through illegal appropriation of nal IP battles as important as those being to the copyright holders and have passed England’s protected industrial technol- waged in 2005. They have been charac- a slew of new laws since 1992: the No Elec- ogy became a prominent feature of the terized as contests between “compet- tronic Theft Act, an anti-bootlegging struggle for political and economic in- ing disseminators,” in which incumbent law (17 U.S.C. section 1101), the anti- dependence. Like modern developing nations, early in its history the United copyright holders challenged more tech- circumvention portions of the Digital States violated intellectual property laws nologically advanced rivals. In the early Millennium Copyright Act, and section of rivals in order to catch up technolog- 1900s sheet-music publishers sued the 1008 of the Audio Digital Home Record- ically [8]. manufacturers of record players. Later, ing Act. Extending the laws to include In the 18th century England had crim- songwriters took on the new radio in- noncommercial infringement was a ma- inalized the diffusion of technology. Were dustry. While cable television is dominant jor shift, and in September 2003 the Re- Benjamin Franklin, on the other hand, now, it began as a community antenna cording Industry Association of America alive in the 21st century he would, no service for rural areas with poor recep- (RIAA) filed suit against 261 individuals doubt, support Richard Stallman and tion. In the 1960s network broadcasters for downloading music. The first crimi- Lawrence Lessig, current advocates of in- accused the nascent cable industry of be- nal they nabbed was a 12-year-old girl tellectual property regimes very different ing “signal pirates” because they relayed living in public housing in New York. As from the current one. the weak broadcast signals to their sub- of 2005 more than 5,700 suits had been scribers. The next major battle was be- filed [14]. Franklin did not succumb to the nation- tween Disney and Sony, which began I remember giving an introductory lec- alist view of knowledge and never became a technology protectionist. He marketing the video recorder (which was ture and demonstration on electronic supported the view that science and tech- invented by Ampex, an American com- publishing to members of the World In- nology were constructed in the univer- pany) in 1975 for a mere $2,295. Within tellectual Property Organization (WIPO) salist tradition as the shared property of a year Universal Studios and Disney filed visiting Silicon Valley in 1994.

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