Piracy

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

U. S. v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. (U. S.) 610, 4 L. Ed. 471; U. S. v. Smith, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 153, 163, 5 L. Ed. 57; U. S. v. Jones, 3 Wash. C. C. • 209, Fed. Cas. No. 15,494.

This is the definition of this offence by the law of nations; 1 Kent 183. It was not a felony at common law. In the 14th century suits in piracy become frequent, but they were for restitution, disre- “Depredation upon the high seas, without authority from any sovereign.” It Is not necessary th'at the motive be plunder or that the depredations be directed against the vessels of all nations indiscriminately. As in robbery upon land, it is only necessary that the spoliation or intended spoliation be felonious, that is, with intent to injure, and without legal authority or lawful excuse; The Ambrose Light, 25 Fed. 408. All nations and individuals are warranted In seizing pirates. It has been held by many authorities that insurgents who have not been accorded belligerent rights are pirates, although it may be their intention to prey upon no ships except those of their mother country whom they are resisting. The American colonists in the American Revolution were declared to be pirates by Great Britain, and so were the cruisers of the confederate government by the federal government during the American Civil War; Snow, Lect. Int. Law 52. Piracy has two aspects: As a violation of the common right of nations, punishable under the common law of nations by the seizure and condemnation of the vessel only, in prize courts; as a violation of the municipal law of the place where the offenders are tried; Wliart.

Cr. L. § 2830; 1 Phil. Int Law 488.

Acts hostile in their nature, done for plunder, hatred, revenge, or mischief, or in the wanton exercise of power, are piratical; Harmony v. U. S., 2 IIow. (U. -S.) 210, 11 L. Ed. 230, where the subject is elaborately discussed. Property found on board a pirate ship goes to the Crown, of strict right; but the claim of the original owner is admitted, on application; 1 Ilagg. Adm. 142. Vessels recaptured from pirates, after whatever length of time, are always restored to the owner on payment of salvage; 4 C. Rob. 3. Congress may define and punish piracies and felonies on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; Const. U. S. art.

1, s. 7, n. 10; U. S. v. Bevans, 3 Wheat. (U. S.) 336, 4 L. Ed. 401; U. S. v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 76, 5 L. Ed. 37; U. S. v. Smith, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 353, 5 L. Ed. 57; U. S. v. Furlong, 5 Wheat. (U. S.) 184, 5 L. Ed. 64.

The following are the sections of the Criminal Code: Every person w Ho on the high seas commits the crime of piracy as defined by the Law of Nations, and is afterward brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life; { 290. Every seaman who lays violent hands upon his commander, thereby to hinder and prevent his fighting in the defence of his vessel or the goods entrusted to him, is a pirate and shall be imprisoned for life; $ 294. Robbery on shore committed by the crew of a piratical vessel Is piracy punishable by imprisonment for life, { 302. Every citizen who commits murder or robbery or act of hostility against the United States or any citizen thereof on imprisonment for life; § 304. Every subject of a foreign state found upon the sea making war upoh the United States or cruising against its vessels or citizens contrary to the provisions of any treaty between the United States and the state of which he is a subject, when by such treaty such acts are declared to be piracy, is guilty of piracy, and shall be imprisoned for life; § 305. Every person who knowingly receives any vessel or other property feloniously taken by any robber or pirate, against the laws of the United States, and any person who, knowing that said pirate has committed any act of piracy or robbery on the land or sea, receives or conceals him, is accessory after the fact, and shall be imprisoned for not more than ten years; $ 834. See Recapture. In Torts. By piracy is understood the plagiarism of a book, engraving, or other work for which a copyright has been taken out; infringement of copyright' may be by unfair quotation; by piratical copying; by piratical use other than copying. Where the violation of the copyright consists of excerpts from plaintiff's hook, the court is bound to consider the quantity and quality of the matter appropriated and the extent to which the plaintiff is injured by it and the damage to the defendant by an injunction. It seems that the complainant is not always bound to prove pecuniary damage to entitle him to an injunction. Where the parts of the complainant's book are scattered through the defendant’s book and cannot be separated, the whole will be enjoined; Farmer v. Elstner, 33 Fed. 404. Piratical copying was held to be established in the case of a society directory by proof that out of 2800 names, 30 common errors were found to exist; List Pub. Co. v. Keller, 30 Fed. 772; and by proof that but of 60,000 names there were 67 common errors; Chicago Dollar Directory Co. V. Directory Co., 06 Fed. 977, 14 C. C. A. 213. Two common errors in maps were held sufficient to establish the fact that one map had been copied from the other; Chapman v. Ferry, 38 Fed. 530; in a mercantile agency book, the existence of 15 common errors was held sufficient to establish the use of the complainant’s book by the defendant; Jewelers’ Mercantile Agency v. Pub. Co., 84 Hun 12, 32 N. Y. Supp. 41. It is not necessary to point out many common errors to establish a presumption of piracy; Jewelers’ Mercantile Agency v. Pub. Co., 66 Hun 38, 20 N. Y. Supp. 749. The court does not feel hound to go through the whole of the defendant’s book to ascertain the extent of the piracy; 19 L. J. N. S. Ch. 90. In 2 Beav. 6, the court enjoined the defendant who had pirated parts of a topographical dictionary, without waiting until the whole of the pirated parts could be ascertained, and held that if the parts which had been copied could not be separated from those which were original without destroying the use and value of the original matter, the defendwas intimated that the injunction would be modified at the final hearing, if the proofs of the defendant tended to segregate any part of the material which had been made subject to the injunction. The rule is well settled that although the entire copyrighted work is not copied in the infringement, but only portions, if such portions are so intermingled with the rest of the piratical work that they cannot well be distinguished from it, the entire profits realized by the defendant will be given to the plaintiff; Belford v. Scribner, 144 U. S. 488, 12 Sup. Ct. 734, 36 L. Ed. 514.

See 2 Russ. 385; Elizabeth v. Pav. Co., 97 U. S. 12G, 24 L. Ed. 1000.

It is the unfair appropriation of the compiler's labor in the case of the syllabus of a legal opinion that constitutes infringement. Identity of language will often prove that the offence was committed, but it is not the sole proof. If the subsequent digestor hap made an unfair use of any part of a syllabus of his predecessor, the burden is on him to show that there were parts of it that he did not use. Where the defendant’s editor, in compiling a digest of reports, digested some 13,300 cases from the 'Complainant’s pamphlet reports and a partial comparison of the copyrighted syllabi with the digest showed internal evidence of piracy in some 400 instances, it was held that this indicated a general, systematic, and unfair use of the copyrighted work, coupled with an attempt to disguise such use, and made out a prima facie case, which was not rebutted by the simple denial of the defendant’s editors that they had made use of the complainant’s syllabi. It was held that the whole work, so far as taken from the complainant’s pamphlet reports, should be enjoined, with liberty to defendant to show by further proofs what paragraphs were digested by non-offending editors and to move to have them excluded from the injunction; West Pub. Co. v. Pub. Co.,, 70 Fed. 750, 25 C. C. A. 648, 35 L. R. A. 400. See Copyright; Memorization.