theintelhub.com
These updates come from Falkvinge
UPDATE: The operators of The Pirate Bay confirm the story in a press release with comments: “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. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. 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.”
UPDATE 2: Some reports are coming in that the traces to North Korea look funny, and suggest that they are an elaborate fake, and that the actual location of The Pirate Bay would be Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Onereport in particular looks credible, but goes beyond my technical ability to verify its claims.
Over the past few weeks many people were surprised that Kim Jong-un invited Dennis Rodman and members of the Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea so they could host a basketball camp. Now in an even bolder move he has invited The Pirate Bay crew to host their legendary file sharing website from a protected location in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The following post was made to The Pirate Bay blog:
The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets.
A week ago we could reveal that The Pirate Bay was accessed via Norway and Catalonya. The move was to ensure that these countries and regions will get attention to the issues at hand. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network.
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. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. 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.
We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country’s changing view of access to information. It’s a country opening up and one thing is sure, they do not care about threats like others do. In that way, TPB and Korea might have a special bond. 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. When someone is reaching out to make things better, it’s also ones duty to grab their hand.
At this point it is too soon to say exactly what is happening in North Korea, but it is very interesting that Kim Jong-un is reaching out to the misfits of western culture in an attempt to build bridges.
As we reported last month, North Korea is experiencing a horrible famine brought on by the insane policies that the regions government has been forcing on its population for decades.
Like many, this government celebrates itself as a “democratic peoples republic”, and claims to have the poor and hungry as their top priority.
Yet, despite there being a massive military budget and a rich ruling class, the peasants who are barely allowed to keep any of their own income are starving to the point of cannibalism.
With all that being said, this is largely a situation that Kim Jong-un was born into, so while it may be unlikely, it is still possible that he can be influenced to loosen up the grip of the state and allow for a more free society.
The actions of the North Korean government should obviously be rejected and opposed in every way, but there are still millions of human beings living in that geographical area, and helping these people achieve freedom is going to be a very delicate process. As we saw with situations like Iraq, invading a country to take out a tyrant will do nothing but cause pain for the general population caught in the middle.
On the topic of intellectual property and the international police state, it is sadly ironic that North Korea is taking an interest in information freedom and harboring The Pirate Bay. North Korea definitely has a long way to go, longer than most places, but if the past few weeks are any indication of what’s to come, than things are about to get very interesting.