] People who casually use the term "piracy" to refer to the
] unauthorized exchange of copyrighted music, movies,
] books, and software would gain a deeper understanding of
] the terms they use by picking up the highly readable book
] Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden
] Age by Marcus Rediker. This recently released study
] (Beacon Press, ISBN 0-8070-5024-5) describes the lives
] and political significance of pirates at the period of
] their greatest growth during the early eighteenth
] century.
]
] Pirates, in Rediker's analysis, were more than just
] thieves. They created an alternative way to regard work,
] society, and life's pleasures in an economically and
] religiously repressive age.

Pirates are an interesting subject. There are very few really good books on them. Peter Lamborn Wilson wrote a good one. This may be another. Basically they weren't just criminal gangs out for loot, like their modern South East Asian descendants, they also had an anarchist ethos which does make them sound a hell of a lot like hackers.

(Update: When you look at the book reviewed here in Amazon, and then click on some of the author's other books you find several accusations that he is a "marxist," along with recommendations for other histories about pirates. This raises some interesting questions. On the one hand, one might expect a marxist to see his subject through that lense. On the other hand, "normal" historians have a lense through which they view events as well. Who would you trust to write a history of computer hackers? Do normal objective journalists do a good job of covering the hacker scene?)