The Ramik Report (Plagiarism/Copyright Issue)

Chapter 4—Piracy

The meaning of “piracy,” “piratical,” and equivalents vary throughout the decisions from a liberal comparative definition (“what is original and what is borrowed or pirated,” Banker v. Caldwell, 3 Minn. 94, 13-16 C.O. Bull. 96, 199 [1859]) to a more explicitly legal definition expressing protection afforded literary property “against infringement by piracy.” ¹ In Simms v. RRPCI 3.10

Stanton et al, 75 F. 6, 13-16 C.O. Bull. 2406, 2407 (1896), “pirated and infringed” are used conjunctively, and properly so. In Maxwell v. Goodwin, 93 F. 665, 13-16 C.O. Bull. 1727 (1899), one finds the intermingling of “the test of piracy,” “the issue of infringement or piracy,” “the charge of piracy,” and the synopsis of the case, the “Test of Infringement.” Perhaps the most precise statement that could be made is that a person who “passes” the test of piracy/copyright infringement to be defined hereinafter is guilty of the act of literary piracy in the performance thereof, and to the extent that such literary piracy is also legal piracy, such a piratical appropriation would “amount to piracy” of copyright. ² RRPCI 4.1