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Pirate Bay to Purchase Sealand?
paulraps writes "Notorious Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to get around troublesome international copyright laws. The organization, the world's largest bit torrent tracker, has set its sights on Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation' and claims to be outside UK jurisdiction. With a target price of £500m it won't be cheap, but Pirate Bay says contributors will become honorary citizens."
Pirate Bay would get cut off in a heart beat.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
The only problem I see right now is that right now the Pirate Bay is operating inside a real country. If they move to sealand, what's to stop the MPAA/RIAA from buying an old Russian Bomber / Diesel Sub / whatever and just destroying the whole platform? Or hiring someone to plant C-4 on the base of hte structure and blowing it up? Further, Sealand only exists because the British have decided it's more trouble than it's worth to just invade it. What if the Brits get pressured into eliminating this grave threat to the international recording industry?
After they spend all that money the UK will claim jurisdiction over them anyway. Up 'till now there hasn't been anything on that platform worth a dang so the UK let some crank claim it was a seperate contry.
Waste of money.
No matter where you go, there you are.
This reminds me of the plot to Cryptonomican, by Neal Stephenson. If this really is a micronation, and the pirate file sharing thing works out, I wonder if they will expand to hosting other files for money in return for a promise of absolute privacy, i.e., no court orders to turn files over. I think they would make up the money spent buying the 'country' rather quickly. Of course, their servers would be a target for the NSA and every equivalent hunting for files from terrorist and criminal organizations.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
The United States, and Germany have found it has no legal status, and that it is part of the United Kingdom, a country who has never given up ownership of the platform.
Surprisingly I'm not a multi-millionare, so I've not looked into it, but I'm betting you could by a tiny island somewhere in the world for a lot less money, and ideally be able to then begin legally moving it to it's own sovereignty. With the added benefit that a single bomb/torpedo wouldn't entirely destroy your country.
At current exchange rates, they would need very close to 1 billion dollars to buy Sealand at a price of a little more than 500 million pounds. That would mean that 1 million people would need to donate 1000 dollars each to get the money. I'm not sure they could raise enough cash if all they needed was 1 million to buy it.
If what they claim is true, i.e. that they aren't doing anything illegal now, why do they need to escape to anywhere ?
Ironically enough, there is one! It's called Steal This Film. Here's a torrent. Maybe this new stuff about Sealand will be in Part 2.
How true. A simple single torpedo from a sub on a "training mission" would mean the end of Sealand. Anonymous and deadly. In reality though, people would find out. It's not like Sealand will have "weapons of mass destruction", and no history to suggest it ever did or ever will (unlike Iraq.)
On the other hand, I think the consequences would be rather severe, as now all small countries who have done nothing wrong will feel that they are targeted. Remember: if your country doesn't have copyright laws, it's not wrong to copy stuff. Many many many things that are illegal in the US are legal elsewhere, and vice versa. Political pressure is not the same as military action.
If you're interested, here's how you can buy your own island.
And if that's not grandiose enough, you could always just build.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Couldn't there just be a torrent with all the latest torrents on it? That way you wouldn't have to worry about the sites getting shut down, because nobody is hosting anything. Of course you would always need to distribute the torrent with the list of torrents, but I suspect that would be a lot easier than keeping the website up. Maybe have the torrent with the latest torrents as one of the files include in each torrent.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The idea of Sealand is that it's supposed to be its own country (which is not assured). If you buy an island that's definitely going to still belong to some other country.
The satellites you'd use to link it to the internet would be owned by somebody else and could be convinced to take the connection down.
Also, an island is geographically fixed, so once all the practical ways to connect to it are taken down (satellite, links from neighbouring places), it's pretty much over.
IMO, the advantage of having a satellite take care of it is that it can bypass the internet completely, letting people connect to it directly (ideally it would be compatible with dishes available to consumers used for some other purpose).
Also, shooting down a satellite is probably a lot more complicated than blowing up Sealand, and if say, China could be convinced to lanuch it, America trying to shoot it down would be an international incident.
The problem is that there aren't any islands that aren't already claimed by a country. You might be able to buy property rights to an island, but no country would ever sell you sovereignty. Sealand, on the other hand, has an arguable claim to sovereignty.
You can take your own opinion about the moral implications of the act of copyright infringement, but at least have the brains to call it what it is.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
I think this raises a rather interesting, larger question. What is the requirement to become a recognized, independent nation nowdays? Historically, it required bloodshed and force - but wouldn't you think that today's supposedly "more civilized" 1st. world countries could handle something like this with some diplomacy instead?
I mean, realistically, I think most people consider Sealand a joke, mainly because it doesn't even exist on any natural soil. It's just a man-made structure (initially built and paid for by a neighboring country, no less), out at sea - and is far too small to really be self-sustaining.
But if something similar took place on an actual island, recognized on maps and charts - what, then?
He's looked at the state of storage devices and now suspects the idea of a data haven is obsolete. Which is better: a single bombable server farm (and look up how good "penetrating munitions" are), or a zillion loose-knit eccentrics hiding tiny nerdsticks under drywall joint compound, in plain sight, or hidden in bales of marijuana?
Anyone who hands their music to another company and sells them the rights to sell copies, publish and do whatever with it has already relinquished those rights. If maintaining your rights is more important to you than having people actually hear your music, then do what actual professional artists do and only sell one copy to a private owner or museum.
Wherever man :p. Main point is there are many other countries around the world where you can put your stuff on and it won't cost you 500 million UKP (almost 1 billion USD).
With 9 digit UKP you might be able to buy the Gov/Ruler of a country that's already a recognized member of the UN. Or buy laws you want.
Antigua has a GDP of USD 750 million.
Monaco has a GDP of USD 870 million.
Andorra has a GDP of about USD 2 billion and is bordered by France and Spain.
Liechtenstein has a GDP of about USD 2 billion and is bordered by Switzerland and Austria.
The advantage of the last two is you can get connectivity from two countries. The *AA then has to get cooperation from both to shut you down.
The advantage of Liechtenstein over Andorra is Switzerland is not a member of the EU, whereas both France and Spain are. Still France might be less cooperative with the *AA than Switzerland.
you are depriving them of their legally granted right.
If that were true, then I would have the right and they could no longer distribute their songs legally, which is obviously not the case. You are *infringing* on their right with regards to copying, which is why it's called copyright infringement. It's not complicated. Saying that copyright infringement isn't theft does not imply anything but that they are different concepts. It's a statement of FACT.
Actually they already won two wars:
r y.html
http://www.seanhastings.com/havenco/sealand/histo
Sealand Fights Off Invaders (Wins War)
In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.
During the time that he held the prisoners, the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned for their release. First they asked England to intervene in the matter, but the British government cited their earlier court decision as evidence that they made no claim to the territory of Sealand. Then, in an act of de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty, Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate for the release of their citizen.
Roy first released the Dutch citizens, as the war was over, and the Geneva Convention requires the release of all prisoners. The German was held longer, as he had accepted a Sealand Passport, and therefore was guilty of treason. Prince Roy, who was grateful that the incident had not resulted in a loss of life, and did not want to bloody the reputation of Sealand, eventually released him as well.