Free Republic

GRAND RAPIDS – A Comstock Park man has been charged with criminal copyright infringement for allegedly streaming live sporting events and pay-per-view events on the Internet.

Exciting times, friends. While we’ve been cleaning up the proverbial ticker tape left behind by jubilant celebration over the recently-stalled antipiracy bills, the Pirate Bay – arguably the premier resource for pirating digital content – has already moved on to the next big thing. The site has announced a new category called “Physibles” that houses digital files that can be downloaded and used in conjunction with 3D printers to print out actual, physical objects: We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided...

Norfolk, Va. (AP) -- Prosecutors in a piracy trial will be allowed to use a Somali man's statements that he had been asked to negotiate the release of four American hostages who were later shot and killed aboard a yacht off the coast of Africa, a federal judge in Virginia has ruled. Mohammad Saaili Shibin's attorney wanted the comments suppressed because they were made aboard a U.S. Justice Department airplane en route from Africa to Virginia after Shibin had requested an attorney. Shibin faces piracy, hostage-taking and kidnapping charges for his role in the February hijacking of the Quest as...

Seven executives charged as filesharing site shut down over accusations they cheated copyright holders out of $500m

EXCLUSIVE: Internet sites on their SOPAStrike may be conducting a blackout but Hollywood studios are conducting a boycott. I’ve learned that Hollywood studio chiefs individually and as a group are drawing a line in the sand on the piracy issue with the Obama re-election campaign and refusing to give any more donations. The blowup came after President Obama on Saturday dashed moguls’ hopes that he would remain on the sidelines in the dispute over the U.S. House Of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act.

The Royal Navy has captured 13 Somali pirates onboard a sail boat in the Indian Ocean, the Ministry of Defence has said. A combined Nato-led counter-piracy force successfully intercepted the vessel which was known to be operating off the Somali coast. Both Royal Fleet Auxiliary Fort Victoria and United States Ship Carney manoevered into position around the dhow and encouraged her to comply with the British and American forces. After the boat refused to cooperate, a Royal Navy helicopter with Royal Marine maritime snipers was deployed to provide various clear warnings to the suspects to stop. The boat refused to...

The debate in Congress over the best way to shut down foreign websites that steal U.S. copyright material and sell counterfeit goods could be about to shift. At least that's the hope of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who outlined their strategy during a Wednesday press briefing with reporters at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The unlikely partners have teamed to oppose two bills in the House and the Senate, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) that would shut down foreign websites by forcing search engines and domain...

MADRID — Spain says pirates have attacked a Spanish navy warship off Somalia, drawing gunfire that reportedly left one dead and prompted a helicopter chase in which six attackers were arrested. A Defense Ministry official says the assailants may have mistaken the 165-meter (540-foot) ship Patino for a freighter in the attack before dawn Thursday.

The Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group said three Australian activists were being held as "prisoners" by the Japanese harpoon fleet Sunday after sneaking aboard one of their vessels overnight to protest. Sea Shepherd said they had helped the three men from the Forest Rescue Australia environmental group to board the Shonan Maru No.2 16 miles (26 kilometres) off Australia's west coast. "The boats approached the Shonan Maru under the cover of darkness and the three negotiated their way past the razor wire and spikes and over the rails to successfully board the Japanese whaling vessel," Sea Shepherd said of the Forest...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates released an Italian-owned oil tanker and its 22 crew on Wednesday after receiving a multi-million dollar ransom, one of the pirates told Reuters. ... The ransom was dropped from an aircraft in two stages, according to a pirate speaking to Reuters by phone. "We have just received the remaining $3 million (1 million pounds) of the agreed $11.5 million ransom. We have abandoned the ship," a pirate calling himself Abdiwali said from Haradhere, one of the pirates' biggest coastal bases.

An online piracy bill in the House would "criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself," according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. Schmidt said the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would punish Web firms, including search engines, that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. He said implementing the bill as written would effectively break the Internet. "By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet," Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship. The search giant has been at the forefront of a tech industry backlash...

Oh let the laughter ensue raucously on this one folks. Seriously how ridiculously stupid do you have to be to not only steal music from the very people you are suppose to be representing, and protecting, but then to get caught doing it. It all started back in 2006 when Dutch performer Melchior Rietveldt was approached by the anti-piracy group BREIN to write a score for an anti-piracy video which he was led to believe would only be shown a a local arts festival. Well it turns out that his music found its way on a large number of retail...

PIRATES were arrested in the Seychelles – thanks to the Royal Marines. It happened after a Spanish trawler sent out a mayday call saying they were being attacked by a gang of seven. The marines, who were on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s Fort Victoria, flew in a ­helicopter to the ­fishermen’s aid. They fired warning shots at the Somali pirates, who were arrested. Lieutenant Alastair Thompson said: “The operation was superbly ­co-ordinated.” On Monday the supply ship, patrolling about 420 nautical miles from the Seychelles, received information that a Spanish fishing vessel had come under attack from a group of...

ROME — An Italian navy ship on Saturday came to the aid of a merchant vessel released by Somali pirates after over seven months in captivity, with news reports saying a ransom was dropped from a small plane. ... The 225-metre (738-foot) vessel belonging to Naples-based Perseveranza had been on its way from Brazil to Iran with a cargo of soybeans when it was seized by pirates off the coast of Oman on April 21 and taken back to Somalia. "In five or six days the crew will probably be back in Italy," Carlo Miccio, a representative of Perseveranza, told...

As the U.S. House Judiciary Committee prepares for its hearing the morning on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), hundreds of web sites and activists are trying to bring attention to the bill with American Censorship Day. Protestors of SOPA have a long uphill battle, if the testimony in today's committee meeting is any indication. The witness list for the hearing on SOPA, scheduled for this morning at 10 a.m. EST, seems decidedly comprised of witnesses in favor of the new bill. Of the witnesses, only Katherine Oyama, Policy Counsel from Google seems likely to testify against the bill. SOPA...

A Glimpse Of The Future Under SOPA: Warner Bros. Admits It Filed Many False Takedown Notices from the is-this-what-we-want? dept While entertainment industry execs still continue to pretend that it's obvious when things are infringing, they continually ignore the very real concerns raised by many of us about SOPA/PROTECT IP/ICE seizures. The concern isn't about taking down the infringing content. It's about the overreach of these efforts, and how it can and will be used to take down other, legal content. This is not some hypothetical scenario. We hear about bogus DMCA notices being issued all the time, and...

An oil tanker seized by pirates off the coast of the Niger Delta last week has been released, officials in Nigeria say. The vessel -- the MT Halifax -- was attacked near the oil city of Port Harcourt. The crew of 25, mainly Filipinos, were said to be safe and accounted for. The area has seen an increase in the number of hijackings of tankers as pirates target oil shipments moving out of Nigeria. In most cases the cargo of fuel is taken off before the ship and crew are released unharmed - unlike in Somalia where crews and their...

TAIPEI — The crew of a Taiwanese fishing vessel fought against armed Somali pirates to retake their ship after it was hijacked off East Africa, Taiwan authorities said Sunday. The 290-tonne Chin Yi Wen with a crew of 28, including nine Chinese, eight Filipinos, six Indonesians and five Vietnamese, had been out of contact since Friday, the foreign ministry said. But the crew managed to overwhelm the six armed pirates and retake control of their ship. ... The Somali pirates fell into the sea, Tsay said, quoting the fishing boat owner, adding that details of the saga and the fate...

(Reuters) - Somali pirates freed the Liberian-flagged container ship MV PANAMA seized last December after receiving a $7 million ransom on Tuesday, pirates holding the ship told Reuters. ... "We received the agreed ransom of $7 million early in the morning after long negotiations. Now we have abandoned the ship and it is sailing away safely," a pirate who gave his name as Abdi told Reuters.

A 2006 Bonny Eagle graduate who joined the Navy right out of high school found himself amid a dramatic piracy rescue last month off the coast of Yemen. Hollis native Lucas Alderette, an electronics technician serving aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, said a pre-dawn alarm led to the rescue of the crew of the Brillante Virtuoso, an oil tanker that had been attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden and set ablaze on July 6. "When we showed up, it was of course still very dark out, but the tanker was easily visible because large sections were...

Max Hardberger, a maritime repo man who recovers stolen ships from lawless Caribbean ports, has set his sights on the notorious Somali pirates 'I don’t know why I like Haiti so much,’ Max Hardberger says, as we battle and swerve through the choking dust and chaos of Port-au-Prince traffic. 'The Haitian people are wonderful, sure, but sometimes they do bad things, especially when they get in mobs, and the country is obviously frustrating. One thing I do like is that it’s lawless here, which makes it much easier for me to operate.’ Hardberger is a 62-year-old adventurer from Louisiana who...

Piracy in the Indian Ocean is hampering the efforts of climate change researchers to the point where they have had to call in the Australian Navy. Pirate activity off the coast of Somalia has increased dramatically over recent years, so much so that a quarter of the Indian Ocean is now considered a "no-go" area. ... "They're ranging so far up from Somalia that we're having difficulties getting instruments into that area so it's a good quarter of the Indian Ocean [that] is a no-go area. Dr Thresher says research vessels have been pursued by pirates on a number of...

Japan has confirmed its ships will be back in the Southern Ocean this year to continue its whaling program. After an early withdrawal from last summer's so-called scientific whale hunt in the region, Japan told the International Whaling Commission meeting in the Channel Islands that it will return this year. Australia has rejected Japan's request for greater protection against activists. The anti-whaling activist group Sea Shepherd has confirmed that it too will continue its pursuit and return to the Southern Ocean.

* Payments technically breach sanctions, say U.N. officials * Britain, United States say al Shabaab are terrorists * Pirates say forced to deal with militants * UK shipping says ransoms only way to rescue hostages NAIROBI, July 6 (Reuters) - Ransoms paid to Somali pirates to free merchant vessels are ending up in the hands of Islamist militants, laying shipping groups open to accusations of breaching international sanctions, U.N. officials told Reuters. John Steed, the principal military adviser to the U.N. special envoy to Somalia and head of the envoy's counter-piracy unit, said links between armed pirate gangs and Somalia's...

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A Somali court on Saturday sentenced three British nationals, an American and two Kenyans to at least 10 years in prison each for bringing millions of dollars intended for pirate ransom into the country. Two of the defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison and a $15,000 fine, said Somali Information Ministry spokesman Abdifitah Abdinur. The other defendants were sentenced to 10 years and a $10,000 fine. The men were arrested in Mogadishu last month after their planes were found to be carrying millions of dollars in cash. A Somali official previously said the planes are...

Three Britons have been arrested in Somalia after a $3.6m ransom drop to release two vessels from pirates went wrong, according to diplomats. The Foreign Office confirmed the arrests on Friday, three days after they were seized. “We are aware of the arrest of three British nationals in Somalia. We are in touch with their employer,” it said, without identifying the company. ... The senior western diplomat said two planes, intended for Galkacyo, a contested town on the edge of northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland, were intercepted at Mogadishu airport, the Somali capital, where fierce fighting with al-Shabaab Islamist...

(AP) BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese general's call for land attacks on Somali pirate strongholds is being seen by analysts as another sign of the armed forces' growing assertiveness, even if the proposal is unlikely to result in action. Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, Gen. Chen Bingde said he believes land bases must be assaulted in order to eradicate piracy. "I think that for our counter-piracy campaigns to be effective, we should probably move beyond the ocean and crush their bases on the land," Chen said, adding that those funding and organizing piracy must be targeted along...

NEWS RELEASE DATE: MAY 2, 2011 LOCATION: PARAMUS, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A. CONTACT: PASTOR JOE SMAHA email: smahajoseph@yahoo.com SUBJECT: CHRISTIAN & MISSIONARY ALLIANCE SUES LOCAL CHURCH TO SEIZE ITS $1.2 MILLION PROPERTY AND BANK ACCOUNT BY FORCE

ARLINGTON, Va.--The Office of Naval Research (ONR) intends to launch on May 16 a new Internet wargame, recruiting a community of more than 1,000 players to collaborate on solving real-world problems facing the Navy. Scheduled to run for three weeks, the Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI) exercise will recruit online players from across the government to suggest ways of combating piracy off the coast of Somalia. “MMOWGLI is an online game designed to find and collectively grow breakthrough ideas to some of the Navy's most complex problems--those 21st-century threats that demand new forms of collaboration and truly...

Pirate attacks quadrupled in the first three months of this year, as compared to the same time last year, several piracy experts said, and there have been four attacks in the last few days, prompting calls for Western powers to take a tougher stand against the threat. The most recent attacks were unsuccessful, but they shows the pirates still pose a serious threat despite improved patrols in the Gulf of Yemen. Pirates are now using hijacked “motherships” to do their dirty work, the European Union Naval Force in Somalia said. This makes them more powerful in two ways: They can...

MOGADISHU, Somalia, April 26 (UPI) -- International naval forces are expected to step up operations against Somali pirates but private security companies are seeking to provide armed escorts for merchant ships to counter the pirates' expansion into the Indian Ocean. The leading British insurer Jardine Lloyd Thompson is organizing a fleet of 18 gunboats to shepherd convoys of vessels across the Gulf of Aden, which runs into Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, vital trading and oil routes now under increasing threat. ... Although business sources say much of the funds to finance the program have been secured, the CEP has...

Toughening its stand on the Indian sailors hostage crisis in Somalian waters, the Indian Navy today sent a Talwar class frigate to the Somalia coast to deal with any exigency during ongoing negotiations, even as the government rejected the pirates' offer for a swap with captured brigands. Overseas Indian Affairs minister Vayalar Ravi said the Indian government rejected the swap offer made by Somali pirates in order to get the abducted Indian sailors freed. The Government, he told mediapersons here, would not bargain with pirates for the release of the sailors, and added that his Ministry was coordinating with the...

As Somalian pirates continue to hold seven Indian merchant sailors hostage, the Indian Navy, in what is a possible retaliatory posture, today diverted a warship from anti-piracy patrolling duties to station it off the coast of Somalia in North-eastern Africa. On Friday pirates released eight of the 15 Indian sailors held hostage since September last year. Seven other Indians, which includes six officers, have been held back despite the pirates having got an undisclosed sum as ransom from the owners of the merchant ship MV Asphalt Venture. The ship was hijacked in September last year when it was on its...

When a Royal Navy warship captured a crew of Somali pirates, it seemed like a rare chance to strike back at the ruthless sea gangsters. The 17 outlaws were armed with an arsenal of AK 47s and rocket-propelled grenades, and had forced hostages on a hijacked fishing vessel to work as slaves for three months. But instead of bringing them to justice, the British servicemen were ordered to provide the pirates halal meals, medical checks, cigarettes – and in one case even a nicotine patch – before releasing them in their own boats. The extraordinary treatment – revealed in a...

There are cameras that capture images clear enough to distinguish between a fishing vessel and a boatload of pirates 10 miles away. There are cascades of water and noxious compounds to repel invaders. And there are shields to withstand a rocket-propelled grenade. A container ship that steamed into a Puerto Rican port Friday was old by commercial shipping standards but it had the latest in security measures, upgrades that convert it into a floating fortress designed to be impregnable to piracy.

International piracy costs the shipping industry billions of dollars a year and leads to high-profile murders that make global headlines. Longstanding concerns over piracy have led to numerous international laws and conventions designed to keep pirates in check – but research from North Carolina State University shows that the tangled network of laws may actually be helping pirates escape justice. “We wanted to know why the international community is not working together and taking advantage of existing laws to address piracy, even as piracy is on the rise in places like the horn of Africa,” says Dr. Mark Nance, assistant...

TV channels are demanding that the Government should pay ransom to free Indian sailors held hostage. We saw similar media frenzy during IC-814 crisis. On December 8, 1989, Ms Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, who had become India’s Minister for Home Affairs less than a week earlier, was kidnapped by members of the separatist Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front. Amidst a frenzy of media attention, Prime Minister VP Singh buckled and sent two of his Ministers, Mr Inder Kumar Gujral and Mr Arif Mohammed Khan, to Srinagar. Despite strong warnings from Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and indications that...

Five dozen pirates living on a hijacked ship serving as a roving pirate base jumped into the Arabian Sea on Monday after the Indian navy fired on the vessel in self-defense, the navy said Monday. The navy captured 61 pirates fleeing the battle and the fire that broke out aboard the hijacked vessel. The battle is the latest example of the piracy trade's turn toward increased violence. A pirate in Somalia threatened Indian sailors and the government with targeted attacks in retaliation for the arrests. The Indian navy said a patrol aircraft spotted the mothership Friday while responding to another...

The Indian Government is mulling over the idea of having armed escorts on merchant ships akin to those appointed in airlines in the wake of an increase in the number of attacks by Somali pirates. The decision is under consideration after Indian ship owners sought the government's permission to have guards on ships as a defensive mechanism. The hijacking of ships near the coast of Somalia has cost the shipping industry millions of dollars. Pirates have continued to attack foreign ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, defying an armada of warships trying to protect the key...

NEW DELHI: India now plans to take the battle to the pirates, with measures finalized to give more operational and legal teeth to Navy and Coast Guard. This will enable the two maritime forces to operate "much more aggressively" against sea brigands on the high seas than ever before. Under the new rules of engagement and standard operating procedures firmed up, Indian warships will now engage or disable pirate ships in "a far more pro-active manner". "Till now, our warships were usually opening fire in self-defence or if pirates were found attacking or hijacking merchant vessels. The new measures will...

NEW DELHI: After clearing new aggressive rules of engagement for naval warships to go on an "all out offensive'' against pirates, the government is now also moving towards allowing armed guards on Indian merchant vessels to keep the sea brigands at bay. The armed guards, akin to sky marshals deployed on civil airliners to prevent hijacking, are likely to be drawn from retired personnel of Navy and Coast Guard, who are well-versed in maritime as well as security matters, said sources. Another proposal being pushed by Navy is to make it mandatory for all merchant vessels to have "safe houses...

NORFOLK, VA—Five men from Somalia were sentenced today to life followed by a consecutive 80 years in prison for engaging in piracy and related offenses in their attack on the USS Nicholas. Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office; Alex J. Turner, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office; and Mark Russ, Special Agent in Charge of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in Norfolk, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge Mark S. Davis. “Today...

Pirates hijacked 53 ships and held a total of 1,181 hostages for ransom last year, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Forty nine of those ships and 1,016 of those hostages – from commercial and private vessels -- were seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia, a statistic that was brought into sharp relief last month when Somali pirates hijacked a yacht and on Feb. 22 murdered the four Americans aboard. Two days later, a Danish family, including three children, was taken from their yacht by Somali pirates and as of this writing had been moved to a larger...

Denmark's government says pirates in the Indian Ocean have hijacked a Danish sailboat with four adults and three children on board. The Danish Foreign Ministry says the ship sent a distress signal on Thursday, and "It has now been confirmed that the sailboat was hijacked by pirates." The ministry said Monday that a Danish couple, their three children — aged 12-16 — and two adult crew members were on board the boat. All are Danish nationals.

old, but worth watching to see who our leaders are at this time of crisis. Cackling Clinton Explains Piracy

... The New York Times reports that an FBI hostage-rescue negotiator aboard the U.S.S. Sterett came to believe the two Somalis were not serious when they boarded the vessel. Once those men were taken into custody, U.S. officials told the pirates on the yacht -- called the Quest -- to send over someone they could negotiate with. The events that immediately followed have been sharply contested and raises questions about the decision to detain the pirate leaders, the Times reports. American officials said the pirates on the yacht seemed relieved — even “exceptionally calm” — when they were told their...

Bible distributors who were taken hostage by Somali pirates were killed while negotiations between the pirates and U.S. military forces were underway Tuesday morning. U.S. forces boarded the yacht in response to gunfire, and discovered that four hostages had been shot. Two of the pirates were killed, and 13 captured in a confrontation, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. Scott and Jean Adam's vessel Quest was taken hostage last week; 19 pirates were believed to be involved in the hijacking.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2011 – Somali pirates killed all four Americans they had held hostage aboard a sailing vessel in the Indian Ocean this morning, U.S. Central Command officials announced. U.S. officials were negotiating with the pirates for the safe return of the captured Americans when the murders took place, officials said. Centcom officials said that in the midst of negotiations, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the S/V Quest. When the forces reached the boat, officials said, they discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately...

Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Monday, the U.S. military said, marking the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in a wave of pirate attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for years. U.S. naval forces, who were trailig the Americans' captured yacht with four warships