Piracy

Sea Shepherd flag flying on the RV Farley Mowat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sea Shepherd is on the bludge again after money dried up once they were declared pirates by a US court…good job.

Sea Shepherd says it needs more financial support to get all its ships in action against the Japanese whaling fleet next season.

The group confronts the Japanese whaling fleet every year in the Southern Ocean.

In February, a Court of Appeal judge in the United States likened Sea Shepherd to pirates and ordered the organisation to keep a distance from the fleet.  Read more »

I think I’ll re-write Michael Field’s piece in Stuff today   Read more »

via earthlyissues.com

“You don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. “When you ram ships; hurl glass containers of acid; drag metal-reinforced ropes in the water to damage propellers and rudders; launch smoke bombs and flares with hooks; and point high-powered lasers at other ships, you are, without a doubt, a pirate, no matter how high-minded you believe your purpose to be.”

And with that very clear explanation, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared Paul Watson and his supporters pirates.   Read more »

Cry-Baby: Paul Watson

The incident: Eco-Terrorist and fugitive Paul Watson and his little band of pirates had their ships run over by law abiding Japanese whalers going about their legal business in the Southern Ocean.

“The Nisshin Maru has rammed the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, but both vessels continue to hold their positions,” Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which runs the protest boats, said.

Watson also accused Japanese coastguard personnel of throwing concussion grenades at their protest ships during a confrontation in the frigid waters near Antarctica and said the Bob Barker was taking on water in its engine room at one stage.  Read more »

Sun News

Ezra Levant tears apart Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd

ᔥ Boing Boing

A wonderful story about a 92 year old bootlegger who copies and sent 300,000 discs of movies to soldiers, using Army Chaplains to distribute them. I just bet the MPAA will be working out how to prosecute him.

The New York Times has a profile of Long Island resident Hyman Strachman, “a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife.”

He is one of the world’s most prolific movie bootleggers, and has shipped hundreds of thousands of discs to US troops stationed overseas, at great personal expense. The man doesn’t exactly fit the MPAA’s pirate stereotype, in age, appearance, or motivation. Better still, who helped him distribute the copied DVDs to soldiers? Army chaplains.

Snip:

“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law. “If I were younger,” he added, “maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”

And of course you want to know what the MPAA says about the nonagenarian widower megapirate!

Howard Gantman, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said he did not believe its member studios were aware of Mr. Strachman’s operation. His sole comment dripped with the difficulty of going after a 92-year-old widower supporting the troops.

“We are grateful that the entertainment we produce can bring some enjoyment to them while they are away from home,” Mr. Gantman said.

..through clenched jaw, no doubt.

The studios did, says Kim Dotcom:

But we are not responsible for the problem and this is, I think, what everyone needs to understand.   Where does piracy come from? Piracy comes from, you know, people, let’s say, in Europe who do not have access to movies at the same time that they are released in the US. This is a problem that has been born within this licensing model and the old business model that Hollywood has where they release something first in one country but they show trailers to everyone around the world pitching that new movie but then the 14-year-old kid in France or Germany can’t watch it for another six months, you know? If the business model would be one where everyone has access to this content at the same time, you know, you wouldn’t have a piracy problem. So it’s really, in my opinion, the government of the United States protecting an outdated monopolistic business model that doesn’t work anymore in the age of the internet and that’s what it all boils down to.

Wikipedia is going to switch off for 24 hours in protest at the US Governments SOPA bill which sees protection of legacy and failed business models:

Wikipedia, the popular community-edited online encyclopedia, will black out its English-language site for 24 hours to seek support against proposed U.S. anti-piracy legislation that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said threatens the future of the Internet.

The service will be the highest profile name to join a growing campaign starting at midnight Eastern Time on Wednesday that will see it black out its page so that visitors will only see information about the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

The information will urge Wikipedia readers to contact their local congressman to vote against the bills. Other smaller sites leading the campaign include Reddit.com and Cheezeburger.

“This is a quite clumsily drafted legislation which is dangerous for an open Internet,” said Wales in an interview.

The decision to black out the site was decided by voting within the Wikipedia community of writers and editors who manage the free service, Wales said. The English language Wikipedia receives more than 25 million average daily visitors from around the world, according to comScore data.

The bills pit technology companies like Google Inc and Facebook against the bill’s supporters, including Hollywood studios and music labels, which say the legislation is needed to protect intellectual property and jobs.

Opposition to the bill is mounting. The Hollywood studios and recording industry needs to get with modern society and stop trying to hold back the proverbial waters, like modern day King Canutes.

Rupert Murdoch is an idiot:

Gareth Hughes wants the NZ Defence Force to send ships to the Southern Ocean in order to protect protestors:

Parliament will be presented with proposed legislation which would see the New Zealand Defence Force monitor Japan’s annual whale slaughter on the southern seas.

Green Party MP Gareth Hughes is penning a private members’ bill which would seek to amend the Defence Act 1990.

The modification would see a Naval vessel accompany the Japanese hunting fleet, a move Hughes said would ensure the safety of protest vessels trying to disrupt the whaling.

The mooted law change will be placed into the private members’ bill ballot when Parliament resumes next month.

”Arguably it is one of the functions under the Defence Act anyway. But this would just make it explicit,” Hughes told Fairfax Media.

”It shows New Zealanders care and we are sending a strong message to Japan. It is like when [Norman] Kirk first sent a frigate to Mururoa Atoll .th.th. it is about bearing witness to an environmental crime.”

A better mission for the NZ Defence forces would be to protect legitimate ship owners conducting legal fishing activities from the depredations of pirates and vandals.

The flying of a skull and crossbones without Letters of Marque means you are a pirate, attacking and boarding vessels illegally means you are a pirate. Pirates are the scourge of the ocean:

Piracy is the name of a specific crime under customary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of States. It is distinguished from privateering, which is authorized by national authorities and therefore a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors. Privateering is considered commerce raiding, and was outlawed by the Peace of Westphalia (1648) for signatories to those treaties.

Sea Shepherd meets all the legal requirements fro being described as pirates. Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. Sea Shepherd in boarding vessels, preventing them going about their lawful undertakings and attempting to halt their sea going progress is committing acts of piracy.

If Gareth Hughes wants the Navy to go down tot eh Southern ocean then let them go down there to arrest pirates.