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Pirate Bay plans to buy its own country
Author: Ryan GarsidePublished: 12th January 2007
This could be the new home of the Pirate Bay. Welcome, my friends, to Sealand!
Its proposal is to raise funds through donations to come up with enough money to buy Sealand. Haven’t heard of Sealand? What rock have you been living under? The Principality of Sealand was founded in 1967 by a former Army Major. He took the title His Royal Highnesses Prince Roy and his wife became Princess Joan of Sealand. Sounds unbelievable but this is completely genuine.
The funniest thing about Sealand is that it’s only 500 metres long and is quite literally, a fort used by the Royal Navy during World War 2. The Pirate Bay, in a recent blog has claimed it would like to take control of the principality. The post says:
"ACFI is a group of people working for the peoples right to it’s Internets. We have made progress in Ladonia and are now working on the Micronation of Sealand.
Recently it was made clear that this country is for sale. To make sure the owners will be kopimistic and that the country won’t be governed by people that do not care about its future, we have come up with a plan.
With the help of all the kopimists on Internets, we want to buy Sealand. Donate money and you will become a citizien.
We’ve set up a forum to discuss how the country is supposed to function. It should be a great place for everybody, with high-speed Internets access, no copyright laws and vip accounts to The Pirate Bay."
The idea has sparked debate over on the Buy Sealand forums, with many pirates’ imaginations going crazy. One enterprising young fellow pondered whether it would be possible to make every user a diplomat and thus make them immune to the laws of their residing country.
Others have, however, been sceptical about the whole situation. In this forum post a forumite called bigdog claims that Sealand wouldn’t work because it actually comes under the jurisdiction of Britain and that internet access would be a problem. The biggest problem we can see though is invasion, piss off the US and UK too much and you’ll have an army knocking on your door quicker than you can say: “Iraq”.
Do you think the idea of buying a micro-nation is absurd? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (39)
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surely a country will needs its own IP subnet, so countried will be able to block traffic to/from it.
also, there's always the declaration of war :D
LOOL!! I really hope they buy it. Maybe I'll go over there and live there. Or at least visit it. Since the country is owned by The Pirate Bay people woudl want to go there on vacation just so they can come back home and say: "I've been to Sealand." And everybody would be like: "WOAH, NO WAY DUDE!!". They could build a small hotel or something and they could earn lots of cash from tourism or somethign like that. What ever happens this is going to be BIG news everywhere.
Good idea, poorly thought out.
but if I was them I'd buy a decomissioned oil rig, tow it outside UK waters and setup there :)
I wonder who would be king?
Before military action though there would ba a simple threat of sanctions against any country supplying them with access to the internet, and seeing that the countries likely to supply them with access would be in Europe they simply would be wasting their money.
sorry.
this is madness... i hope they buy it..... :D imagine guys dressed as pirates on that platform, and talking like: ARRRRR, shimber me timbers!!!!! were is mi .TOR!!!!!!
edit: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
edit2:
edit3: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
So pirate bay needs to come up with about a billion dollars.... from where?
Nice idea but before I even read the first line I thought that America would invade it before anyone could download anything!
/Me vote we create a bit-tech army and invade sealand? ComputerKing will obviously be His Royal Highneess, King of Sealand!
And. LivE In A WOrld of This?!!...NO ThanKS..
Man.. OH PleaSE/ Should hAVe NExxo is King, morE info ThaN Computer King BrAIN(HEAD)
Surely they could just buy a massive old tanker or something, tow it out to international waters whack a huge diesel generator on it along with a satellite dish and a server room and be done with it instead??
Sealand falls within UK territorial waters, probably not the best place to be setting up a base of operations for TPB.
Danny Wallace.
And the country is called Lovely.
Can still visit the site http://www.citizensrequired.com/
On Sealand.
While i think its a rather fun idea i cant really see the meaning of it and how they will get all that money.
Edit: Oh ya, didnt see page 2 and the Danny Wallace reply.
It does actually, and even though it is in British waters, Sealand isn't part of Britain at all and doesn't come under any kind of it's jurisdiction. Just like because part of Britain comes under Sealand's territorial waters doesn't mean it belongs to Sealand.
As for invading;
1) Why would a government waste time and money invading/destroying sealand if the Pirate Bay bought it? They're pirates, and not the Ahoy Matey kind, governments don't really give a **** about it.
2) It would be a political nightmare
lol
Throw the spammers overboard!!
i luv the idea...definitely visit it for sure. live there? hell no. but theyll make a huge bunch of money from tourism for sure. the first ever country to actually harbour modern-day pirates ;)
Actually, one well placed lump of C$ and there us no Sealand
THE INTERNETS IS A BIG TRUCK!!!!! NOT TUBES!!!!!
they have satelite internet......and a good lump of Cmoneysimbol :D would be a political disaster.
This story peaked my interest so have been looking into Sealand, seems like a bit of a dive to me. A small rusted concrete platform with at most 10 rooms that look very prisonesque? Don't care who owns it, i cant see many people being that bothered to go and see / stay there.
Maybe TPB will pull out a laser based on the moon, stick their little finger in their mouth and demand 1 billion dollars from the world goverments, seems more plausable than their ability to get that much money together from user donations :p
I hope they do get sealand it would be great, id certainly go live there!
i think they need to get a small tropical country which would proberly be a fraction of the cost in comparison
Seriously i don't think these people have ever been to war or even seriously understand that international water has no law. It would be funny if real pirate invade that island.
Real pirates invade it to find 5 Pentium II machines running off of ISDN. That's all they'll be able to afford after buying the place.
That's not strictly true. The British government has not claimed it simply because there hasn't been a pressing reason to do so. I am 100% sure, with no doubt or hesitation in saying that if a major crime is ever commited on Rough Towers the international community will consider Britain responsible because after all, we put it there. If it comes to it, Britain would simply "conquer it", as the majority of the world don't consider it a sovereign nation and the rest have never openly called it a sovereign nation its status is a frail one to say the least.
Try out their new lawless country and have websites hosted there to generate revenue?
If all goes well and nothing bad happens they can consider buying. :D