A Sad Day For All The Pirates

As of March 2, The Pirate Bay brought to you by our Swede brothers is down, probably a result of a DDoS attack purported by the IFPI as reported in Wiki. Meanwhile the owners are on trial for all kinds of copyright infringements. I guess people looking for torrent trackers have to look elsewhere.

While the pirates in France thought they had the green light from the French court to sell the two looted bronze heads during the Opium War in 1860 in Saint Laurent's posthumous garage sale, the Chinese were not going to just do nothing. In a "patriotic" move, a Chinese man Cai Mingchao submitted the highest bids to Christie's for the heads and won. But Mr. Cai now says he is not going to pay up for his winning bids, a total of some $40 millions with commission included. So the message is screw you, France, Mr. Berge and Christie's. Mr. Cai runs the risk of getting negative feedback from Mr. Berge ... oh sorry it's not ebay.

Meanwhile the pirate brethren in China aren't faring any better. As reported by the New York Times, lawyers representing the likes of Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Burberry are coming down hard on the mall owners who allow shops to sell counterfeits in their properties. Many stalls selling super-A merchandise, knockoffs that are so good that they are on par or even better than the real things, are forced to close. But our Chinese pirates won't just go away quietly, instead they unite to pose a counter-attack against the lawyers and mall managers representing those Western interests, demanding an apology and essentially their right to pirate those craps from France, Italy, Great Britain and whatever brands that can sell. They are saying if the French can sell looted Chinese artifacts, it is only fair that they can pirate their Louis Vuitton bags. (I totally made that up, I think what some vendors are saying that it's unpatriotic for the lawyers to come down on them when they are just trying to eat.)

Oh, brother. The world of piracy couldn't be more interesting.