Sealand Won’t be Sold to Pirates

Written by Ernesto on January 18, 2007 

His 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.

sealandPrince 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.

CBC interview (YouTube)

Previously: Interview with Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent

Next: Mosts Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk03)

54 Responses

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26 Jan 19, 2007 at 17:52 by Jabba

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.

27 Jan 19, 2007 at 22:50 by Killthemall

This piece of crap costs 750 million? hehaha Bates will have it forever…

28 Jan 19, 2007 at 22:53 by Kamil

Buy an old warship with the money and destroy the place. Like any ol’time pirates would done to peoples they didn’t like.

29 Jan 20, 2007 at 01:02 by Keith

Hope it won’t be some radioactive fanatic freak that’s going to purchase that island.

http://www.neohide.com

30 Jan 20, 2007 at 15:37 by Matt

http://www.privateislandsonline.com/sale-price-under-250K.htm
Seems to have a list of islands already within the range of tpb.

31 Feb 19, 2007 at 14:06 by Patrick

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!

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