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> few countries punish piracy severely, but companies are allowed to sue the pirate.

UNCLOS, Part VII, Section 1, Article 100 https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

>> Duty to cooperate in the repression of piracy

>> All States shall cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State.

We could have just added "private computer" to the definition of piracy, and it largely would have applied.

>> Definition of piracy

>> Piracy consists of any of the following acts:

>> (a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed [...] on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;



..What? Digital piracy has absolutely no logical or legal connections to naval piracy, except for sharing the same name.

No sane person could ever implement anything like this. This is like saying that we could "just" add the word "digital" to the laws prohibiting murder to make playing GTA illegal.


An extra-territorial crime

Mostly committed by private citizens in pursuit of profit

That all nations of the world have an interest in suppressing to encourage free trade that economically benefits them

But which some countries at various times have a geopolitical interest in supporting

... you're right, they have no logical or legal connections at all.


You could tie essentially any two crimes by assigning more broad descriptors to them that'd boil down to "this is what countries want to discourage". Not to mention, half of this is just wrong - digital piracy most often isn't extraterritorial (it very much falls under the jurisdiction of where the piracy took place), and most individuals pirate for personal needs, not profit.

The point stands - no jurisdiction that I know of treats digital piracy similarly to naval piracy, and there is no strong argument in favor of doing so.


> digital piracy most often isn't extraterritorial (it very much falls under the jurisdiction of where the piracy took place)

The canonical eBay/PayPal fraud from eastern Europe example?

> most individuals pirate for personal needs, not profit.

But most piracy is done by individuals in pursuit of profit, not for personal need.




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