Free Republic

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...