For the record, a black pirate flag flown on a ship means that the ship flying it means to board and take prisoners if the target vessel surrenders without a fight. If it had a red background, it would mean they were going to board and kill everyone they found (the red background one usually would get flown after the black background one if the target ship made haste to try and run away, making the pirates angry). I learned this while browsing articles to make sure that it was acceptable subject matter and to select an appropriate pirate flag design to emulate.