Piracy

In criminal law. A robbery or forcible depredation on the high seas, without lawful authority, done animo furandi, in the spirit and intention of universal hostility.

United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 4 L. Ed. 471.

This is the definition of this offense by the law of nations.

1 Kent, Comm. 183. And see Talbot v. Janson, 3 Dall. 152, 1 L. Ed. 540; Dole v. Insurance Co., 51 Me. 467; U. S. v. Smith, 5 Wheat 161, 5 L. Ed. 57; U. S. v. The Ambrose Light (D. C.) 25 Fed, 408; Davison v. Seal-skins, 7 Fed. Cas. 192.

There is a distinction between the offense of piracy, as known to the law of nations, which is justiciable everywhere, and offenses created by statutes of particular nations, cognizable only before the municipal tribunals of such nations.

Dole v. Insurance Co., 2 Cliff. 394, 418, Fed. Cas. No. 3,966.

The term is also applied to the illicit reprinting or reproduction of a cepyrighted book or print or to uniawful plagiarism from It.