ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down

An anonymous reader writes "ThePirateBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation. Slyck.com is reporting their servers have been seized by the Swedish police." What's really interesting about them is the strange political power that they held in their homeland. There was much discussion even of a political party. This will be interesting to watch unfold.

Comments

Re:Legal?

[porkThreeWays]

That's the great thing about the world. You can do illegal things. And just because they are illegal and someone calls you out on them doesn't mean you'll be prosecuted (I'm looking in your direction NSA wiretaps)

Re:Slyck News down

[X-Phile]

http://www.mirrordot.org/

Re:A quote

[rbarreira]

Actually swedish uses "ö", not "ø". Danish and Norwegian use ø.

Nice ad revenue scam :)

[flobberchops]

Google would be proud :) Hoax site take down, get lots of hits and ream in the ad revenue from visits when hosted again :)

Re:Not unprecedented

[Knuckles]

Not to forget Klaus Stoertebeker, a pirate in the northern seas around Hamburg. He is still kind of a folk hero in northern Germany - it's quite hard to google useful stuff about him in German, because all you get are Stoertebeker beers, Stoertebeker pageants, Stoertebeker seaside resorts, etc.

That pirates often had support in the local communities is little surprise - (not only) given the times, their policies were often quite favorable to those of "official" armies. E.g., Stoertebeker's group was known as "Likedeeler" " - an old German word, but a hint at the meaning should be clear to English speakers. I could find only German links for the exact setup (the English wikipedia article linked above doesn't mention it), but Likedeeler means approximately "equal sharer" - all proceeds from the group's endeavours would be shared in even parts among all, including captain (and, legend has it, often also with the poor along the coasts.)
No wait, here is a short summary in English.

There is of course no shortage of legends about other robberies, exploits, and pranks, most notably Stoertebeker's death (see wikipedia.) Little is known in written history, though.
And why not? These were freedom-living people, many of whom simply preferred being a pirate to being enslaved in some king's army. I'm sure they were cruel and all, but so were the times. I'm sure they could be fun to have around, too.

Hakim Bey has written some interesting things about pirates (and also many other topics.)