Friday 15 February 2013

Ahoy! Will Pirates seek prize money for "plundered" design?

A Finnish anti-piracy group has decided to use almost exactly same the design and layout of the infamous Pirate Bay’s classic pirate ship-themed homepage  for its own website. Perhaps slightly tongue in cheek, an anonymous Pirate Bay spokesman told TorrentFreak “We are outraged by this behavior” adding “People must understand what is right and wrong. Stealing material like this on the Internet is a threat to economies worldwide. We feel that we must make a statement and therefore we will sue them for copyright infringement." The Pirate Bay's  usage policy does indeed prohibit use of any site material without permission.

That said, there is no evidence that The Pirate Bay has filed suit, either in Finland or Sweden. The group did not respond to requests for comment via Twitter or e-mail from Torrent Freak. 

The new site, called Piraattilahti (“Pirate Bay” in Finnish), clearly pokes fun at the Swedish original whose three co-founders and original backer all received custodial sentences. It is run by the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre(CIAPC) in Helsinki. CIAPC told Finnish media that its main page (antipiracy.fi) had faced a denial of service attack but is still in operation - and of course points to legal content. 

Question: Under the principle of international law known as the "universality principle", a government may "exercise jurisdiction over conduct outside its territory if that conduct is universally dangerous to states and their nationals". This applies to piracy on the high seas. Does it apply to the internet? 

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-rips-off-pirate-bay-website-faces-lawsuit-130213/ and more on pirates here 

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