Buying Sealand
This seems one of the latest attacks to hit the already quite battered anti-piracy industry: The Pirate Bay announced a couple of weeks ago that it intends to buy Sealand, a disused UK military sea platform which was declared an independent state by a former armed forces member in the 1960s.
The principality, as it is called, has been used in the past to host web servers for various hosting companies which wanted a stable place to host their equipment without the restrictions of national laws. In one English court appearance, Sealand was declared to be outside the control of the UK since it was outside territorial waters. However, the UK subsequently extended these waters, which now cover the platform. There is an ongoing debate as to whether Sealand is really immune from UK laws and jurisdiction.
The current owner has declared his intention to discuss the sale of the platform to The Pirate Bay, who would then use it to host their BitTorrent trackers outside the control of the Swedish authorities, who recently carried out a raid on The Pirate Bay’s hosting facility and confiscated computer equipment.
The Pirate Bay says that this will allow their trackers to be run without the ongoing fear of arrests and confiscations. If the sale falls through, the organisation has said that it will investigate purchasing another uninhabited island and establishing an independent country there to host the equipment.
There is a donation facility on the Buy Sealand website, which also hosts a blog detailing the current status of discussions. To date, more than $18,000 has been donated by Pirate Bay users towards the purchase.
The anti-piracy industry will really have to work on this one, and there is quite a good chance that it will not be able to do much difference if The Pirate Bay’s servers are deemed to be outside any country’s jurisdiction. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier for everybody if they had a second look at the DRM nonsense and various restrictions they are placing on content which is fueling the surge in illegally downloaded content from sites like The Pirate Bay?