freebooting

noun

1. (uncountable)To pilage or plunder; piracy

   “The Haghar are well known, even in Europe, for their freebooting propensities.”

   “Why do you now refuse to protect your own highway into the Interior, […] and thus put an end to the freebooting of the Boers, and of our own people who joined them?”

   “In a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business.”

2. (uncountable)Software piracy, or stealing or unauthorized rehosting of digital content.

   “Your recent issue about the problems of electronic software piracy or "freebooting" — if you will — was excellent and timely. However, I wonder if both sides have failed to understand the social significance of the struggle.”

   “Freebooting of broadcast satellite signals may exist privately, but we have no evidence of illegal signal capture being commercialized any longer.”

   “Many felt that the software companies are really the ones who ought to be called pirates. […] No wonder, the reader said, that customers are tempted to a little freebooting of their own.”

   “Oh those freebooters taking our videos! I'm sick of it. Freebooting, you know, it's a serious issue!”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Engaged in piracy or plunder

   “In one respect, as I hinted above, it is only too good, so sure of success, I mean, that you are no longer secure of any respect to your property in our freebooting America.”

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of freeboot