Web owners move to North Korea for freedom of speech

MrPeabody · Post by **MrPeabody** » March 4th, 2013, 3:26 pm

The controversial file-sharing website said it is now operating out of North Korea, after recently being forced out of Sweden. The Pirate Bay said Kim-Jong Un invited the website to North Korea, and the site's logo, which is a pirate ship, now features the North Korean flag on its sails.

"This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high," a press release by the site says. "And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information."

Although some are questioning the validity of the supposed move--the Pirate Bay had made a similar claim in 2007--the site's IP address has been traced to Pyongyang, North Korea.

"If it's a joke, it's a very elaborate one," said a user on Hacker News, a tech news forum.

The Pirate Bay's news comes shortly after a visit to North Korea by former NBA player Dennis Rodman. Google's Eric Schmidt also recently visited the country.

"We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country's changing view of access to information," the site's statement says. "We will do our best to influence the Korean leaders to also let their own population use our service, and to make sure that we can help improve the situation in any way we can."

http://www.latimes.com/business/technol ... 5878.story

abcdavid01 · Post by **abcdavid01** » March 4th, 2013, 3:32 pm

Yeez, what the hell is going on in North Korea? Sure are acting confusing lately.

Cornfed · Post by **Cornfed** » March 4th, 2013, 3:42 pm

If true, this is awesome. Good on the Norks.

Andrewww · Post by **Andrewww** » March 4th, 2013, 6:24 pm

How ironic

, I respect their decision although I rarely use the site.

There are dozens of faster, private, invitation based only trackers out there, closing The Pirate Bay will not eradicate piracy. He should come to Canada, we have Isohunt alive and well

E_Irizarry · Post by **E_Irizarry** » March 4th, 2013, 6:30 pm

Dennis Rodman was there recently. Maybe NK has been removed from the Axis of Evil now.

Furthermore, all the file sharing sites that are not taken down for ICMA complaints, are all off-shore.

Only sites part of the Anglosphere are flagged con-stant-ly!

Perfect example, MediaFire. They are based out of Texas.

I dont' tell people about the foreign file sites I used expect 4shared. 4shared is European although they use English as it's main language.

I purchase my VSTi and VSTfx plugins online. Guess where the SOTA audio mixing and mastering plugins are from?? Not from the U.S. of Gay

brainworx - based out of Germany
crysonic - based out of Australia
reaper - based out of Micronesia
fabfilter - based out of the Netherlands
elysia - based out of Germany
waves - based out of Israel
overloud - based out of Italy

heck even FL Studio is based out of Belgium.

The only good stateside made audio-f/x plugins are Slate Digital (based out of Los Angeles) for epic mastering.

So that shows that America is not imploring good audio engineers anymore. What gives, ppl???

zacb · Post by **zacb** » March 4th, 2013, 7:02 pm

Yeah, I am kind of stunned. In between Schmidt, Rodman, and now the Pirate Bay, I am starting to wonder whether real reform is imminent.

Jester · Post by **Jester** » March 4th, 2013, 10:15 pm

zacb wrote:Yeah, I am kind of stunned. In between Schmidt, Rodman, and now the Pirate Bay, I am starting to wonder whether real reform is imminent.

+1

I didn't know about the Schmidt thing. Interesting.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/20/technol ... index.html

Jester · Post by **Jester** » March 4th, 2013, 10:22 pm

Cornfed wrote:If true, this is awesome. Good on the Norks.

Do you speak their lingo? Maybe there is opportunity for a White guy who can understand and navigate the place... Collect fees from Al Gore, Mark Zuckerberg, "Casino Jack" Abramoff, etc for introductions etc.

I guess the NK goal would be to open up and modernize as much as possible, while keeping ironclad political control for the ruling elite. China, US, South Korea and Japan will all approve.

China Resurgent must have told them it's time for a makeover.

zboy1 · Post by **zboy1** » March 5th, 2013, 5:35 am

HaHa, good for Pirate Bay. The Feds shut down Kim Dotcom and my favorite file sharing site, Megaupload (:twisted:), so wouldn't be surprised if this was true. It was bull what happen to him--damn U.S. govt!