Buy an island...break some laws
 

The Pirate Bay plans to buy island

Published: 12th January 2007 12:37 CET

Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to circumvent international copyright laws.

The group has set up a campaign to raise money to buy Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation', and claims to be outside the jurisdiction of the UK or any other country. more

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/7...tf80343hb4.jpg

:blah:

Oh Gawd...

Great. Let's load the platform up with servers until it sinks.

I belive that they'll just use that as their main office and then be able to use servers elsewhere?

Do they not need to have the actual servers there? Logistical nightmare, just getting enough power would be a pain in the arse.

I doubt power would be an issue. Some diesel generators could already be there.

I think there is one problem with this scheme though. The US government now prosecutes foreigners for violating our laws. I heard about a guy running an "illegal" radio station in the Gulf of Mexico. Since what he was doing wasn't a crime where he was (on the oil platform), US law couldn't touch him.

This is a little different. Copyright infringement is illegal everywhere. So would you make yourself a "man without a country?". Even if you were running these file servers off shore, would you get arrested when you set foot on american soil.

I know some foreign guys that are involved in encryption technology. They are afraid to publish some aspects of these technologies, because they are afraid of violating US law.

In their own countries, publishing this information would be quite legal. However, they would like to continue to travel to the US without fear of being arrested.

This is a relatively new thing. That the US will prosecute you for crimes committed in other countries. The start of this was laws designed to stop child pornography tourism.

If you are a foreign national and break US law, they will prosecute you. Of course, they could not legally come to your "country" and arrest you. But set foot in a real country and you'd probably be arrested and looking at fighting extradition.

Welcome to the "New World Order".

Frankly though, if a guy was going to go to that much expense and trouble to steal movies, couldn't you find something equally cool to do that wasn't stealing?.

This isn't actually true; copyright's a law which most countries have, yes, but it's certainly not universal, and it's very variable.

Of course, it's maybe possible to get carriers to stop taking Sealand's internet traffic using legal means.

Yeah, the encryption laws really suck. I believe that you're technically alright so long as you work on the technology outwith the US and don't bring it over borders, though. On the other hand, breaking encryption is another matter. I think someone's been arrested for that before, when they came to the US.

I don't think copyright infringement is illegal in Somalia... in fact, they have real piracy there.

Yeah, I'll run my web during the year and take my vacations in wonderful, scenic Somalia?. Hmmm....

reminds me of Petoria.

Heh, heh. Forgot about that espisode. :up:

You mean Dmitry Sklyarov?

That's the guy. I remember it being a "big thing" for quite some time.

Yeah. Good 'ol DMCA.

Hey, that bill could have a slogan:

"Bringing you closer to a police state... one court case at a time!"

Ok, not so catchy. Fuck, what do you want? I'm tired. I need to go home. I'm at work at 2:12AM. Fuck you.

It doesn't seem right that these guys can go off and buy this so they can distribute material that they haven't paid for, whilst honest consumers spend their cash legitamately (sp?) and in some cases foot the bill (i.e, companies charging more for their product because of pirating).

Seems like isohunt.com has been shut down because of its MPAA lawsuit. I'm sure they'll be back, just like the pirate bay did.

Easy solution: don't buy the products. Entertainment products are not a necessity. So long as consumers are willing to pay for it, companies will continue to sell at the same price. Why wouldn't they? More importantly, why shouldn't they be able to?

I wasn't critizing how much companies sell their product for. I'm more than willing to pay the price if I think I'm getting my moneys worth, otherwise I don't buy the product.

What I am saying, however, is that Piratebay is wrong to do what they do because it basically says a big 'fuck you' to anyone who is legit and pays money for a product.

You can go and buy the island if you want to.