The priority of piracy

Abstract

With the recent growth of historians’ and anthropologists’ interest in intellectual property, what is at stake in writing a general history of piracy? Adrian Johns argues in this remarkable book that in the most crucial senses it is piracy that has been the fundamental concept all along, with intellectual property a specific historical manifestation and consequence of the broader idea: ‘‘To assume that piracy merely derives from legal doctrine is to get the history—and therefore the politics, and much else besides—back to front’’ (6). What does this mean in practice? First, the historiography: While historical accounts of intellectual property have been dominated by court cases, the history of piracy is primarily cultural; notions and claims about piracy may exist independently of legal doctrines, but not vice versa. Second, the history: Conceptions of piracy relating to intellectual productions predate legal regimes of intellectual property. This is true both in the longue duree (this history begins in earnest during the seventeenth century, well before anything like intellectual property existed in any specific sense) and in the specific episodes that comprise the narrative (medical patenting arises as a response to counterfeiting, the same goes for early twentieth-century sheet music legislation, and so on). Absent any legal definitions, however, it becomes tricky to define what gets to count as piracy. Johns thus relies explicitly on actors’ terms: The narrative begins when people began accusing one another of being pirates (and, as Johns points out, ascriptions of piracy tend to be made in both directions in such controversies). The term’s use in relevant contexts became common after the Glorious Revolution in England, when the Press Act of 1662 had lapsed, precisely when there was no legal basis for property in literary works. This is crucial to what lies ahead: time and again, accusations of piracy arise when conflicts over right conduct arise between communities with differing traditions and customs. This still leaves the