I didn't realize that pirate has referred to unlawfully copying someone's work for a very long time and did not in fact start with the internet.
Here's Samuel Johnson:
The OED gives a quote from J. Hancock (1668):
Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies.
And Defoe's (1703) complaint:
Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates.
References
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Pirate, n. In Oxford English dictionary. Retrieved July 28, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2094938967
A more recent (ish) example is Gilbert and Sullivan, who were so sick of American theatre companies essentially stealing the copyright of their works and performing them without paying any royalties (because US copyright law did not protect foreign creators) that they decided, in 1879, to premiere their next operetta on Broadway (before London) so they could control it's release themselves. with a less than subtle nod towards their views of the American theatre industry, it was "The Pirates of Penzance"
