Pirate Bay's plan B: buy a country where P2P is legal

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-01-13 04:42pm

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.

The Pirate Bay says it is the world's largest 'bit torrent tracker', and is a popular way of sharing music, films, software and other copyrighted material online. It has been under the scrutiny of authorities in Sweden and around the world for some time.

The site was briefly closed down after raids by the Swedish police last May. After initially moving to the Netherlands, the site returned to Sweden in June. Swedish authorities have been put under pressure to do more to stop the site. The Motion Picture Association of America, the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau and the US government have all lobbied for The Pirate Bay's closure.

According to a website set up to secure the purchase of Sealand, The Pirate Bay plans to give citizenship of the micronation to anyone willing to put money towards the purchase.

"It should be a great place for everybody, with high-speed Internet access, no copyright laws and VIP accounts to The Pirate Bay," the organisation claims on its website www.buysealand.com.

The "island" of Sealand, seven miles off the coast of southern England, was settled in 1967 by an English major, Paddy Roy Bates. Bates proclaimed Sealand a state, issuing passports and gold and silver Sealand dollars and declaring himself Prince Roy.

When the British Royal Navy tried to evict Prince Roy in 1968, a judge ruled that the platform was outside British territorial waters and therefore beyond government control.

The British government subsequently extended its territorial waters from three to twelve nautical miles from the coast, which would include Sealand, but Prince Roy simultaneously extended Sealand's waters, claimed that this guaranteed Sealand's sovereignty.

The island is now being put up for sale by Prince Roy's son, Prince Michael, who styles himself head of state. A firm of Spanish estate agents has valued the island at £504 million (about 7 billion kronor), although Prince Michael told The Times of London that it is hard to gauge how much it will fetch in reality.

The Pirate Bay says it is looking at alternatives to buying the former naval platform.

"If we do not get enough money required to buy the micronation of Sealand, we will try to buy another small island somwhere and claim it as our own country," the organization says on its website.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-01-13 05:35pm

A billion dollars for fucking Sealand?!

I can't believe TPB is serious about trying to buy Sealand. The UK just let Sealand fuck off and do whatever because they were a harmless pack of crackpots, but once something that has the attention of so much money as online piracy starts operating out of there, dollars to donuts says we see British forces storming Sealand, arresting everyone there for conspiracy to commit copyright violations (or something like that), confiscating all of the hardware, and then blasting Sealand to shit with a naval barrage so that nobody ever again tries to claim "soveriegnty" out of an old naval rig.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2007-01-13 06:06pm

Wasn't there already a Data Haven being set up there? What happened to that?

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2007-01-13 06:57pm

The brilliance of it is that Sealand was never officially recognized as a country by any world nation. Plus, it lies just outside British coastal waters and there is no one who wants to claim it on political grounds.

I mean, you set up a P2P network in Sealand and even if they want to force you to stop they will have to open diplomatic relations. Two way win: you can tell them to fuck off from an embassy which is two times bigger than your country.

This is so awesome.

Of course, like Uraniun said, the other end of the pole is a visit from the Royal Navy.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-01-13 09:36pm

How does Sealand connect to the Internet? If it's a seabed cable, I could just as easily see authorities in whichever country the cable goes to (Britain, I'd bet) simply disconnecting the cable. I guess a satellite connection could be set up, although that would represent a rather vicious ongoing expense. Ultimately, The Pirate Bay would really be much better off trying to find a real island they can buy from some pissant nation whose wheels could be greased on the cheap.

I really don't see how anyone can seriously value a decrepit old naval fort at $1B, though. Maybe if it really was an internationally-recognized nation, it could command that sort of money, but even then a whole $1B is simply absurd.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-01-13 10:59pm

Or, they relocate to Russia where no one gives a shit for such stupid capitalist things like "copyright".

Post by **fgalkin** » 2007-01-14 02:16am

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Or, they relocate to Russia where no one gives a shit for such stupid capitalist things like "copyright".

It depends on the amounts of money you pay the local officials, though. Once their cash flow starts to decrease, they have a nasty tendency to start following the law.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin