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It is located in UK Teritory but it does have its own rights:

The Principality of Sealand is a man-made off-shore installation named HM Fort Roughs, a former Maunsell Sea Fort located in the North Sea 10 kilometres (six miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England, as well as territorial waters in a twelve-nautical-mile radius.

587px-Map_of_Sealand_with_territorial_waters.svg.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand

Storm is right. The whole thing was recognized de jure in British court on November 25, 1968. Its sovereignty as an independent state has never formally been recognized, however, the British government has yet to declare war upon their closest neighbor. To date, no nation has ever formally recognized Sealand, although Germany had to send a diplomat there once. :D You can visit Sealandgov.com for some history of the sea-fort nation.

I suspect that if Piratebay got ahold of it, though, the British would invade in force to save their precious copyrights. It would be the first military action taken over an abstract philosophy, I think. Sealandgov.com says the Principality makes a practice of following UK laws, since many of its citizens are living there and hold dual citizenship. Currently a company called HavenCo is occupying the place.

Agreed. Just think how many companies/groups will be able to exploit the system by establising their own "country".

what "system" would you be refering to?

is it so hard to believe that there are places without ridiculous rules/laws enforced?

In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.

During the time that he held the prisoners, the Governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned for their release. First they asked England to intervene in the matter, but the British government cited their earlier court decision as evidence that they made no claim to the territory of Sealand. Then, in an act of de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty, Germany sent a diplomat directly to Sealand to negotiate for the release of their citizen.

Roy first released the Dutch citizens, as the war was over, and the Geneva Convention requires the release of all prisoners. The German was held longer, as he had accepted a Sealand Passport, and therefore was guilty of treason. Prince Roy, who was grateful that the incident had not resulted in a loss of life, and did not want to bloody the reputation of Sealand, eventually released him as well.

Thats ace

They say "It should be a great place for everybody, with high-speed Internets access" if they did buy it how are they going to get a high speed internet connection 7 miles out at sea? I?m guessing by satellite or something.

Good look to them anyway! funniest news I?ve heard in a long time!

I know i wouldn?t choose to live in se;)and ;)

I don't know how they are going to get the necessary bandwidth from anyone. If they are able to get it from a second or third world country (ie: Romania, Nigeria) then why not just move to one of those countries. I think that they will be stuck on their island too, as the UK will not permit them into the country (to visit or whatever). If they do let them in, they'ld probably arrest them for violating International Copyright Law. They'ld just have to stay away from their neighbours.

Ok, if they buy it and move their servers there, they would have to do it by boat, can we then call that boat a pirate ship?

That's good.

The UK may tolerate some family living on the rig and not paying taxes because of the PR issue of sending in an invasion force to retake their property.

If the rig is used for a nefarious reason that PR problem disappears and the UK government would be free to re-nationalize the rig that they originally built and paid for.

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