This 1995 book is a detailed study of Sicilian life and economy in the 'transitional' reign of Frederick III (1296-1337).

Piracy CulturesEditorial Introduction MANUEL CASTELLS 1 University of Southern California GUSTAVO CARDOSO Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL) What are "Piracy Cultures"? Usually, we look at media consumption starting from a media industry definition. We look at TV, radio, newspapers, games, Internet, and media content in general, all departing from the idea that the access to such content is made available through the payment of a license fee or subscription, or simply because its either paid or available for free (being supported by advertisements or under a "freemium" business model). That is, we look at content and the way people interact with it within a given system of thought that sees content and its distribution channels as the product of relationships between media companies, organizations, and individualseffectively, a commercial relationship of a contractual kind, with accordant rights and obligations. But what if, for a moment, we turned our attention to the empirical evidence of media consumption practice, not just in Asia, Africa, and South America, but also all over Europe and North America? All over the world, we are witnessing a growing number of people building media relationships outside those institutionalized sets of rules. We do not intend to discuss whether we are dealing with legal or illegal practices; our launching point for this analysis is that, when a very significant proportion of the population is building its mediation through alternative channels of obtaining content, such behavior should be studied in order to deepen our knowledge of media cultures. Because we need a title to characterize those cultures in all their diversitybut at the same time, in their commonplacenesswe propose to call it "Piracy Cultures."

Piracy and Intellectual Property in Latin America is the first sustained effort to present an alternative framework for understanding piracy and contemporary challenges to global discourses on intellectual property (IP) in the Americas. While piracy might just look like theft and derivative reproduction from the perspective of many right-holders, the contributors to this volume go beyond this economic-driven logic and show how practices of copying are in fact practices of reinvention that reflect the rich social networks and forms of creativity, authorship, commerce, and consumption that characterize informal economies. From a perspective informed by contemporary scenarios in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Guatemala, and the United States, they engage in a discussion of alternatives that—predicated on the importance of protecting culture—allow for other ways of conceiving prosperity at local, national, regional, and global levels. Examples discussed include video games, clothing, trinkets, music, film, TV, and books. Designed to help understand the broader implications of IP and piracy for the field of Latin American studies, this book will be a major contribution to Global South studies, as well as to the growing bibliography on globalization, informal markets, and piracy.

"This volume represents a sea change in educational resources for the history of piracy. In a single, readable, and affordable volume, Lane and Bialuschewski present a wonderfully diverse body of primary texts on sea raiders. Drawn from a variety of sources, including the authors' own archival research and translations, these carefully curated texts cover over two hundred years (1548–1726) of global, early-modern piracy. Lane and Bialuschewski provide glosses of each document and a succinct introduction to the historical context of the period and avoid the romanticized and Anglo-centric depictions of maritime predation that often plague work on the topic." —Jesse Cromwell, The University of Mississippi

The topical chapters in this cutting-edge collection at the intersection of comparative law and anthropology explore the mutually enriching insights and outlooks of the two fields. Comparative Law and Anthropology adopts a foundational approach to social and cultural issues and their resolution, rather than relying on unified paradigms of research or unified objects of study. Taken together, the contributions extend long-developing trends from legal anthropology to an anthropology of law and from externally imposed to internally generated interpretations of norms and processes of legal significance within particular cultures. The book's expansive conceptualization of comparative law encompasses not only its traditional geographical orientation, but also historical and jurisprudential dimensions. It is also noteworthy in blending the expertise of long-established, acclaimed scholars with new voices from a range of disciplines and backgrounds.