Pirate Parties Plan To Shoot Site Into Orbit 301
palmerj3 writes "It is almost four years ago that The Pirate Bay announced they wanted to buy the micronation of Sealand, so they could host their site without having to bother about copyright law — an ambitious plan that turned out to be unaffordable. This week, Pirate Parties worldwide started brainstorming about a similarly ambitious plan. Instead of founding their own nation, they want to shoot a torrent site into orbit."
Uhhhhh. (Score:5, Insightful)
From tfa (Score:1, Insightful)
The TFA mentioned the worry of having a "bandwidth provider" getting a take-down notice, thus pulling the site offline. How feasible would it be to simply have the micro satellite broadcast via RF the torrent list? It would cut out the need for a provider on the ground. All the PBers would need would be a way to recv the signal and input it into the computer.
It still doesn't solve the issue of "who would launch it into the sky" for them. Maybe China?
just relocating the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The location of the hardware where the data is stored is only a part of the challenge they face. Whether you put it on a platform in international waters, on a seagoing vessel, in orbit, or even on a sovereign planetoid, for it to be of use to terra-bound, law-bound consumers you need a communications link to that site, and one end of that link is going to be subject to the laws of whatever state the consumer is in.
Re:Or: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no problems buying media, but its become to the point where in order to actually use what you paid for you end up breaking the law in some way or another.
When pirates not only are offering a free copy but a better copy, the sales for the legitimate copy will naturally slow.
Re:Great idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
It may come to that. It occurs to me that at some point governments are going to have to agree on methods to control extra-governmental forces like the Pirate Party/Bay, Wikileaks and even Al Qaeda.
Interesting try: Link two organizations that are fighting for freedom with one known for terror and bestiality. Do you have an agenda or did you just got too much tea?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
They could, however, allow it to stay in one piece and disable it some other way. Extremely powerfull and very directed EM radiation would fry all it's circuits for example.
Re:Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason anyone would buy that pile of crap for a billion dollars is because they wanted to do some heavily illegal shit on it, otherwise they'd go buy some tropical private island for 1% of the cost. Since Britain would never allow that sort of thing to go down within their territorial waters, any potential buyer is essentially spending a metric assload of money for a fairy tale.
Re:How long will this last? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing: every territory is under the rule of whomever shows up with the most guns.
Laws are only tangentially relevant.
A satelite, or a territory is dumb anyway, because to be any use, either one would need a link to the rest of the internet -- and they'd need to get that from some nation -- at which point the LINK is subject to the jurisdiction of that nation.
Re:Outer Space Treaty (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why they need to launch it from a ship, which itself was built by another ship, from international waters.
If that doesn't work, I have these schematics for a giant wooden badger.
Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
I felt a great disturbance in the Torrent, as if millions of seeds suddenly cried out in 404 and were suddenly silenced. I fear something corporate has happened.
Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the point is that there is no reason for NSA not to hack the satellite and use it for their own purposes--because, hey, free com satellite.