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Debora Halbert, "Intellectual Property Piracy: The Narrative Construction of Deviance", International Journal for the Semiotics of Law / Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique Vol.X no.28 (1997), 55-78: As intellectual property becomes one of the most important commodities to the United Sates a corresponding increase in entertainment and computer software piracy can be observed. Because new technology produces products prone to perfect duplication, and thus open to rampant (and often-times free) exchange, the traditional notion of copyright is experiencing an unparalleled threat. Given the threat posed by a new era of technology prone to sharing information instead of owning information, copyright owners are finding it necessary to utilize their narrative abilities to render illegal the actions of the technological pirate. This paper will examine the narrative construction of intellectual property pirates, paying close attention to the U.S. approach to piracy in the Asia-Pacific region. Not only does the U.S. export cultural products via intellectual property industries, but it export the U.S. notion of intellectual property, authorship, and originality as well. I will argue that the U.S. international approach to intellectual property protection is a narrative process that helps construct enemies used to further cement property boundaries in the information age. e-mail: dhalbert@otterbein.edu

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