Pirate Bay's new cry: Sealand ahoy!

The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, may have found a way out of its legal woes: buying its own country.

The group has set up a fund to purchase Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea. In 1967, an Englishman settled on the Sealand platform, proclaimed it a state and started issuing passports and his own money.

His son has now put the "micronation" up for sale, and the organizers of Pirate Bay think this could be the solution to their problems. "It should be a great place for everybody. With high-speed Internets access, no copyright laws and vip accounts to The Pirate Bay," the donation site says.

Blog community response:

"If TPB cannot raise enough money for Sealand they plan to continue their search to buy another small island and declare it a nation. All I have to say: Awesome! I'll donate."
--Gizmodo

"I'm just going to say this. Instead of all the effort to raise money to buy your own country, which will probably not happen, how about spending some of that time and effort trying to do something legitmate to help the stated cause of 'intellectual property reform.'"
--Life on the Wicked Stage

"Should they succeed, the new nation may be the very first time the EU and UN come together and beg the United States to militarily invade and subdue a nation."
--Riehl World View