The Swedish-based file-sharing site, the Pirate Bay, is looking to buy an island so it can avoid international copyright laws. The first choice is Sealand, a man-made off-shore installation similar to an oil rig and originally called HM Fort Roughs, a former British Sea Fort in the North Sea 10 kilometers off the English coast.

The installation was taken over by Roy Bates in 1965, who apparently wanted it for his own offshore radio station, expelling the rival pirate station Radio Caroline. Sealand is outside British territorial waters, but is not recognized by any nation.

From the Pirate Bay blog:

Buy Sealand.com is a site where you can help out in donating for the cause of getting a copyright-free nation! .

The initiative is taken by us and some friends. The goal is to raise enough money to either buy Sealand - or some other small island somewhere!

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The price for Sealand is probably about $2,000,000.000. We don’t really care. We’re going for it anyhow! We really want to see what the community can do - with it’s own island. Since we are all for sharing the country would be shared amongst us all.

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Help out with the donations - or spread the word - or at least participate in the forums there. What would YOU do with your own country?

The Pirate Bay was closed down by the Swedish police in May 2006, but resumed operations from new servers in the Netherlands shortly afterwards. The site attacts around 1.5 million users from around the world every day.