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" CRIMINALISING COPYRIGHT PIRACY   CRIMINALISING COPYRIGHT PIRACY   By   Shumayl Aziz Advocate High Court, Islamabad   Introduction   The main purpose of criminalising copyright piracy is to vilify the activity of copyright piracy and to deter people from committing it. The Concise Oxford Dictionary' gives two definitions for the word piracy; the first definition describes piracy as 'the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea',2 whereas the second definition describes piracy as 'the unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work'.3 It is the second definition which is pertinent to the present discussion but the first definition is more evocative and natural. Whenever the word piracy is mentioned it brings to mind the images of pirates, adventure, skulduggery, ships, swords and daggers. Although there might be semantic differences between the piracy of yore and piracy of today but the purpose of piracy has always been the same which is extortion. According to Christopher N Kendall and Linda McNamara the word piracy 'is more commonly and colloquially used by the courts and legal commentators to describe the illegal dealing in infringing copies of work to which copyright or other intellectual property rights attach.'4   In the modern age copyright piracy has become an anathema for copyright owners. The technological improvements have made it very easy for pirates to reproduce copyrighted works without any substantial investment on their part. Further, the society generally does not consider piracy as an immoral act. Darren Spalding points out that 'Advances in technology and the advent of digitisation have spawned an age and culture of copyright piracy. Copyright infringement has become acceptable to the community psyche, gaining…