Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Parties Plan To Shoot Site Into Orbit
palmerj3 writes "It is almost four years ago that The Pirate Bay announced they wanted to buy the micronation of Sealand, so they could host their site without having to bother about copyright law — an ambitious plan that turned out to be unaffordable. This week, Pirate Parties worldwide started brainstorming about a similarly ambitious plan. Instead of founding their own nation, they want to shoot a torrent site into orbit."
Dear Pirate Party,
Thank you for donating targets to us. We've been meaning to test our Space Object Destruction Laser®, but haven't found any suitable object to target. Because of your charity, we can now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operation system.
Sincerely,
The United States of America
Living With a Nerd
It's the only way to be sure...
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Assuming they can actually come up with the money to launch it, I wonder how long it will be up there before it "accidentally" gets hit with a "stray" surface-to-air or air-to-air missile. It'll either be that or incentive to clean up some space "junk." Maybe this is what it will take to get NASA a bigger budget.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
Space Pirates!
Isn't this all just ignoring the real problem? It doesn't matter if you buy a nation, or buy an island, or buy a satellite. You have to get your internet pipe from some external source of which isn't in your "bubble of safety". You could setup a pirate planet, but if you want to connect back to earth you still need a transceiver based in a country not owned and operated by you. Great! You can't be prosecuted for doing what you want to do, but no one can access it.
get ready for one hell of a server crash
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Somehow I feel way less sympathy for these guys now that I can afford to just buy the games I want... weird.
The location of the hardware where the data is stored is only a part of the challenge they face. Whether you put it on a platform in international waters, on a seagoing vessel, in orbit, or even on a sovereign planetoid, for it to be of use to terra-bound, law-bound consumers you need a communications link to that site, and one end of that link is going to be subject to the laws of whatever state the consumer is in.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Just park it right next to (or better still, in front of) one of HBO's satellites.
The US govt wouldn't risk upsetting one of their investors.
...Except for the fact to actually use the crap you paid for you usually have to break the law. Want to actually -watch- that DVD without having to watch ads? You usually have to use something like libdvdcss to break the encryption, same thing with format transfer. Games are often times nearly unplayable without cracks and the like.
I have no problems buying media, but its become to the point where in order to actually use what you paid for you end up breaking the law in some way or another.
When pirates not only are offering a free copy but a better copy, the sales for the legitimate copy will naturally slow.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Won't work. Read the Outer Space Treaty, specifically Article VI. (full text: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty_of_1967#Article_VI)
In short: if it's launched from Country X, Country X has responsibility for it, whether it was launched by the Country X government or just by some wacky idealists who live there. In practice, this means that spacecraft are no more outside of national laws than seagoing ships are.
(shrug)
I just watch the ads. It's easier and less time-consuming.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The proprietors of Sealand continue to live in fantasy land. All it is is an abandoned platform out in the ocean under British rule. Sure, they say it's independent, but the only reason they're allowed to carry on thinking that is because they aren't doing anything illegal enough for the Brits to make the effort to enforce their rule. If something like the Pirate Bay moved in, they would find the British reasserting themselves over that hunk of concrete pretty quick. Hell, the Brits traveled 8,000 miles to go to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, and the only thing worth anything there is a bunch of sheep. They'll have no problems sending a ship (or a cruise missile) a few miles out to sea to take out a platform.
The only reason anyone would buy that pile of crap for a billion dollars is because they wanted to do some heavily illegal shit on it, otherwise they'd go buy some tropical private island for 1% of the cost. Since Britain would never allow that sort of thing to go down within their territorial waters, any potential buyer is essentially spending a metric assload of money for a fairy tale.
What happened of the money people donated to buy it?
Why not? Benelux distributor does not carry it. It does for the PS3 and the 360 but NOT the PC version. Why? Other CE's are carried but not this on.
So, I am going to pirate the game. That way I get all the extra's, all the special packs from various shops, and zero cost and zero hassle to me.
FUCK YOU content industry, when you actually make it impossible to buy products, my limit is reached.
And yes, it is the game companies that are to blame for the distributor. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to give exclusivity for a region? How are market forces supposed to act with monopolies? No competition, single supplier, no choice. My hard earned money should support this? Nope.
Stop fucking up your customers and maybe people like me would actually buy stuff. But if you don't even put it in the stuff, what am I supposed to do?
And if you claim I should import, you just don't get it do you, why should I jump through hoops, to give someone else money? It would be like the supermarket putting up a moat, daring me to come in and spend anything at pain of death.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are rules in space.
It's highly unlikely that a national government would expend the military and technical resources necessary to shoot down a satellite, not to mention draw international ire, merely for the sake of placating the copyright lobby. They're big players, but there are limits to even Disney's power.
It's far more likely that a pirate satellite would encourage the copyright cartel to push to expand existing laws to make them more iron-clad regardless of jurisdiction. The Pirate Bay would gain a temporary advantage, but it would likely backfire over the long haul.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Someone else pointed out that if you're this far gone, it's time to stop using the internet then for your traffic.
Not to mention that for the millions of dollars needed, as well as manpower, to put something like this into orbit you could instead "AOL" it, by sending every human on earth a CDROM (or DVD) with pirated warez on it.
Want to make a statement? Use the postal system. Make every human a "evil hacker" by giving them a DVD full of stuff the MAFFIA don't want you to have.
Think: If during prohibition, if Al Capone had given away liquor, Amendment 18 would have been repealed a lot quicker.
There is no police force large enough to arrest every man, woman and child on planet earth.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
...and cheaper to just set up their own micronation platform using something like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Making_an_Island/Construction_Guides? All they'd need is a relatively shallow site not in territorial waters. A (largely) unmanned site could be left sealed tight when heavy weather is coming, and could otherwise be maintained by a couple of guys. Armed guys, copyright law being what it is. But, hey, machine guns would be legal! http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle551-20100103-03.html
In the case of Sea Launch, the U.S. requires that American individuals or corporations obtain a license to launch from the FAA, whether they're launching within the U.S. or not. Interesting article on all the legal ramifications here.
Other countries likely have similar rules. But it just proves the overall point: whether the legally-sketchy activities take place in space or in international waters, whoever is controlling those activities generally lives in an actual country, and the laws of that country can be brought to bear against them.
The reason that space isn't weapon laden is that they Russians and the US signed treaties keeping it a "demilitarized zone."
That means that its meant for use strictly as for observation, (look down for photon coming up,) rather than shooting down.
Even the Chinese signed the treaty because they see the wisdom behind it.
You can't defend yourself from space based "bolides" (which can strike the planet like the "Hammer of Thor" without needing to be anything other than heavy and headed in the right direction.)
Such a weapon could be built now and use "space resources" (asteroids and comets conveniently placed in a wide belt between Mars and Jupiter,) and some long-term guidance for an automated system to crash a world-changing million ton hunk of dirt and ice into this planet.
Its enough to discourage anyone knowing that after a war the loser could still "drop the hammer" on you a generation after you though it was all over and you'd won.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.