Sealand Won’t be Sold to Pirates
Written by Ernesto on January 18, 2007His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Sealand said in an interview with ‘CBC The Hour’ that buying Sealand is probably a good way to circumvent international copyright law, but that he won’t sell sealand to the Pirate Bay.
Prince Michael, also known as Michael Bates, said the following about the activities of the popular BitTorrent tracker. “It’s theft of proprietary rights, it doesn’t suit us at all. In fact, I’ve written a book and Hollywood is making a movie out of it, so it would go right against the grain to go into the filesharing thing.”
Sealand is currently prized at 750 million euros, which equals nearly one billion US dollars, a sum of money that would be impossible for The Pirate Bay to raise anyway. Prince Michael said that maybe some wealthy Russian, who doesn’t want to have a radioactive isotope dropped in his cornflakes when he’s not looking, might be a potential buyer instead.
Sealand’s Spanish estate agent, the one who came up with the price, also said that The Pirate Bay may not be allowed to buy the micronation, because Sealand has pledged not to allow a sale that would damage the interests of, or act against the UK.
But not to worry, The Pirate Bay still has its eye on some other islands and micronations. The good thing is that these are a lot cheaper than Sealand, which is nothing more than a pile of rust and concrete anyway.
Previously: Interview with Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent
Next: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk03)
17 Responses
Well, time to move to other possible islands.
That ‘asking price’, if it’s real, is too high, unrealistic.
Good luck finding a buyer, lol…
The price is an abusive number, what they are trying to do is to sell a nokia 3330 for 200€, that thing worths half billion dollars at max, but anyway The Pirate Bay only hosts connections for peers, they have nothing to do with the person that has the file and shares, “dont blame the mailman, he only does his job”.
“Sealand has pledged not to allow a sale that would damage the interests of, or act against the UK.”
Then what’s the point? I thought the idea of a micronation was to be able to do things conventional nation-states didn’t like.
By the way, shouldn’t Tab from the comment entry field go to the Submit button?
750.000,- euros for a lump of rust isn’t what I call a good deal
Sealand was made famous by The Pirate Bay
Yes Sealand sure was made famouse by TPB. I bet the asking price reflects this, maybe they are trying to capitalize on their new found fame.
funny since sealand hosts one of the biggest crack sites, cracks.am, on the net.
Sealand suxx0rs, why don’t they buy a ghost ship :) and chain it to the bottom of the ocean!!!
\”because Sealand has pledged not to allow a sale that would damage the interests of, or act against the UK\”
because nobody uses torrents in the UK? The english all hate TPB? wtf is he talking about?
yay PIRATES!
http://mbcpoetry.wordpress.com
Find a protector nation.
You need their protection from the US, UK, and other copyright nations. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Anyone “friendly” to the US is going to find US troops on their soil funded by corporate copyfiends. United Fruit anyone?
I’m thinking Cuba or Venezuela.
This piece of crap costs 750 million? hehaha Bates will have it forever…
Buy an old warship with the money and destroy the place. Like any ol’time pirates would done to peoples they didn’t like.
Hope it won’t be some radioactive fanatic freak that’s going to purchase that island.
http://www.neohide.com
http://www.privateislandsonline.com/sale-price-under-250K.htm
Seems to have a list of islands already within the range of tpb.
Watch, I promise it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft buys Sealand. I can see Bill Gates personally land on the helipad and proudly make his way into the server room. Can you see the Microsoft banners waving from the towers? lol! Sealand isn’t just great for pirates, it’s also great for geeks!
Haha, for THP nothing is imposseble! :D
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