War and piracy in scifi; a brainbug?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Do not forget that a great part of historical piracy was not fighting Spanish galleons but raiding small and relatively defenceless coastal settlements.
This can be reflected by raids on young colonies etc. (provided a cheap and easy way to get out of the planetary gravity well exist)

Also, why not hit on robotic space freighters with only a minimal crew and changing their course to whereever you have got a customer for them?

Well, a startup colony isn't going to be economically viable for sometime (in terms of their usefulness to the interstellar economy at large, since the colony will be starting out as a giant welfare state and working up towards basic subsistence.) Though you could intercept shipments of material, goods, and colonists bound for the colony, it may be a much cheaper alternative to simply threaten to do this, and extract extortion money from whatever company or goverment is sponsoring the colony.

[Prozac the Robert]

Another factor is the cpst of spaceships and the technology and knowledge needed to keep them flying. No pirates on earth could afford to run the space shuttle, but a speedboat is easily affordable for a couple of people.

[Symmetry]

I bet they'd have sorfware piracy in space, and the corresponding Copyright Eforcement WarsTM