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."

Comments

Theres a problems with this.

[AltGrendel]

As pointed out in the previous Sealand article, you have to connect to someone. So you get your fiber run out to.... who? England? France? India? Look what the Russians are doing with their oil.

Pirate Bay would get cut off in a heart beat.

Re:Theres a problems with this.

[Alchemar]

You don't have to have the gear located inside your country. You find a friendly third world country (ie they will accept you bribe) to set up an embasy. The embasy is now considered your soil under your laws. I don't think there is anything in international law that says you can't have an embasy that is larger than your native country. Now you can just make a deal to tie into the main fiber for the country your embasy resides in. Tell them you need a direct connections for reasons of national security.

Think of the extended benifits. Under the guideline set by the US, no one should have problems with you kidnapping the head of the RIAA and using waterboarding techniques to extract information about how they are planning to shutdown your network, thus causing the complete economic colapse of your country as well as threatening (ie terrorizing) all your honorary citizens.

Re:Arrr!

[walt-sjc]

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.

Re:Arrr!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they already won two wars:

http://www.seanhastings.com/havenco/sealand/histor y.html

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.