Abstract

This article explores the connection between maritime and digital piracy, and pursues the thought that the common moniker is more than a rhetorical flourish. Golden Age maritime piracy (1650–1730) and today’s piracy in cyberspace are by no means identical; there is no one ideal form of piracy. And yet, pirates of the literal and virtual high seas share a crucial feature: their social role as others. Piracy itself is a social function; its content is otherness. Dominant accounts of piracy note its character as a mode of resistance, but frame that resistance as either economic or political. Neither of these explanations of piracy’s resistance is sufficient on its own. The comparison of Golden Age maritime piracy with current digital piracy is telling, because what these two modes of piracy have in common is the way they highlight the relationship between capital and the state system. In other words, piracy’s political attack is not simply an assault on the idea of sovereignty, but rather a more specific critique of the way the system of sovereign states advances the interests of capital. The legal treatment of piracy, making it the pillar of universal jurisdiction, highlights the particular threat that piracy presents to the world order: the crime is political because it is an affront to the economic-political alliance that is capitalism, old or new.

中文翻译：

---

盗版：异乎寻常的宝藏箱

摘要

本文探讨了海上盗版与数字盗版之间的联系，并提出了一个共同的绰号，即不仅仅是夸夸其谈。黄金时代的海上海盗行为（1650–1730）与当今网络空间的海盗行为绝非相同；没有一种理想的盗版形式。然而，文字和虚拟公海的海盗有一个关键特征：他们与其他人一样的社会角色。盗版本身是一种社会功能。它的内容是其他。关于盗版的占主导地位的说明指出其作为抵制模式的特征，但将这种抵制归结为经济或政治上的抵制。这些对海盗抵制的解释本身都不足够。黄金时代海上盗版与当前数字盗版的比较表明，因为这两种盗版模式的共同点在于它们突显了资本与国家系统之间的关系。换句话说，海盗的政治攻击不仅是对主权观念的攻击，而且是对主权国家体系促进资本利益的方式的更具体的批判。海盗行为的法律待遇使其成为普遍管辖权的支柱，突显了海盗行为对世界秩序的特殊威胁：犯罪是政治性的，因为它是对旧的或新的资本主义经济政治联盟的冒犯。