Free Republic

Russia is considering handing out licenses to use foreign software, database, and chip design patents, and legalizing software copyright violations, in response to sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine. According to Russian business publication Kommersant, a government document drafted on March 2 outlines possible actions to support the Russian economy, which faces extensive trade restrictions from the US, the UK, and Europe, and business withdrawals. With companies like Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, and SAP halting sales (though not ending service to existing customers), Russia has instituted tax breaks for technology firms and conscription deferments for IT workers to retain its...

Since his inauguration President Biden has spent 95 of his 348 days in office on vacation. That's 27%. A normal working person who gets two weeks of vacation a year spends about 4% of his time on vacation. Critics have cited Biden's excessive time off work as a factor in major policy failures in Afghanistan and on the Mexican border. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said "it doesn't matter how much of his time he spends on the job because the American people voted for him to be their president and he is their president 100% of the time...

"Nobody riffs on Eric Clapton — least of all bootleggers. As one widow just learned, Clapton doesn’t take too kindly to anyone profiting off of his music — not even just $11. The Cream guitarist has won a copyright infringement case against a woman in Germany who attempted to sell a burned copy of a Clapton concert recorded in the 1980s. DW reported that she copied the work from a CD purchased at a department store by her late husband in 1987. The 55-year-old woman from Ratingen was selling the ripped disc on eBay for €9.95, or about $11.25. Minus...

Not content with overfishing its own coastline in a non-sustainable way, China has now turned to unethical pirate fishing in the territorial waters of less powerful nations around the world. Chinese fishermen turn off their GPS transponders that can be traced electronically, send out false electronic signals, violate U.N. maritime law, enter the sovereign fishing territory of foreign nations, illegally fish with slave-like labor, and then escape to international waters with their catch. Some fishing fleets are so large that they can be seen from space.For China, world fishing is now like the wild west, with a value in billions...

<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman last month and still holds the vessel off Bandar Abbas, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.</p><p>One of the officials said paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops took control of the MV Southys on Oct. 24 at gunpoint. U.S. forces had monitored the seizure, but ultimately didn't take action as the vessel went into Iranian waters.</p>

...No walking the plank for her. She was hanged, proven guilty of robbery, by Sheriff Joe Robinson on a beautiful fall day. Her downfall after a brief career with her husband of piracy, thievery and murder? A pretty bonnet. Rachel, around the age of 16, loved the water. The boats and dockyards always spoke to her. Born on a farm outside of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it bored her; so, while in Harrisburg, she went to the docks. She was harassed, harangued and attacked by a group of girls. Enter George Wall –- a fisherman and former privateer who served in the...

The hanging of Albert Hicks on Bedloe’s Island on this date in 1860 marked perhaps the last execution for piracy in U.S. history.* This was a century and more past the Golden Age of Piracy. By the mid-19th century, the picaresque buccaneer had long ago hornswaggled his last doubloons and retired from Atlantic sea lanes into literary nostalgia. According to the Espy file, there had been only a single piracy death case, a double execution in Virginia in 1852, over the preceding quarter-century. Hicks, who alternately went by William Johnson, wasn’t exactly Captain Kidd: think less freebooter, and more hijacker....

Authorities in Belarus scrambled a fighter jet and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to force a Ryanair plane to land on Sunday and then detained an opposition-minded journalist who was on board, drawing criticism from across Europe. In the dramatic incident, a Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jet escorted Ryanair-operated passenger plane flying from Athens to Lithuania. The plane was suddenly diverted to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where authorities detained journalist Roman Protasevich. Data from the flightradar24.com website showed the plane was diverted just two minutes before it was due to cross into Lithuanian airspace. After...

The Ryanair plane was en route to Vilnius when it was diverted to Minsk. The opposition says the move was a bid to arrest a journalist on board who is critical of Lukashenko's government. A journalist known for his critical reporting on the Belarus government is being held at an airport in Minsk after his Lithuania-bound flight was forced to land, opposition figures said on Sunday. Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said the journalist in question is Raman Pratasevich, who "faces the death penalty" in Belarus.

On this date in 1804, two known as John Setton/Sutton and James May were hanged at Greenville, Mississippi. They were, in fact, Wiley “Little” Harpe and his outlaw partner Peter Alston — the survivors (well, up until then) of a notorious gang of Mississippi River pirates and frontier highwaymen. Their villainous coterie had plagued the Mississippi (river) and the proximate byways from Kentucky down to Mississippi (state), making a couple of spots on the great river legendary pirate hideouts in the process. With a bounty of the notorious leader Samuel Mason, “Sutton” and “May” coldly murdered their captain to turn...

South Korea is sending military forces to respond to the seizure of one of its tankers by Iran, an endeavor in which it is seeking to work with other nations operating in the region Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard announced Monday that its Zulfiqar fleet had seized a South Korean vessel operating in the Islamic Republic's First Naval District in the Persian Gulf "due to a series of violations of marine environmental laws" after it departed from Saudi Arabia's Al-Jubail port. The ship, Hankuk Chemi, was said to be transporting up to 7,200 tons of oil-based chemicals, and carrying a crew...

The Italian Navy chased off a group of pirates attempting to the attack a tanker this week in international waters off Benin in the Gulf of Guinea. The incident took place November 7 when pirates in a speed boat chased the tanker Torm Alexandra. A helicopter crew from the nearby Italian Navy frigate Martinengo was launched and upon arriving on scene found a pirate skiff with what looks to be about 5 or 6 armed pirates on board.

Armed pirates attacked three ships in the eastbound lane of the Singapore Strait between Sunday night and Monday morning (Nov 8-9). The incidents took place within the span of six hours on three nearby ships. As none of the perpetrators has been arrested, the pirates might strike again, said the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre (ISC) on Monday. There was no confrontation between the perpetrators and the crew in all three incidents and none the crew was injured, ReCAAP said. Ship equipment was stolen from one ship, and...

Pirates based in West Cork made millions from plundering shipping and they almost destroyed trade between Europe and the Americas — but were beloved by locals as they gave them three times the going price for supplies. The extent of the pirate presence in the region and their huge influence is detailed in a new book written by Dr Connie Kelleher, an underwater archaeologist, based in Killarney, who works for the National Monuments Service. Her book, 'The Alliance of Pirates — Ireland and Atlantic Piracy in the Early 17th Century,' describes how West Cork became a magnet for pirates and...

New data from digital piracy analysts Muso shows traffic on piracy sites jumped more than 40 percent following stay-at-home orders in the U.S. and U.K. Lockdown and stay-at-home orders due to the novel coronavirus have been a big boost for online pirates, with a new study showing double-digit growth in digital piracy across major territories in Europe and North America. The data, published Monday by London-based piracy analysts Muso, shows visits to illegal film streaming and download sites shot up by 41.4 percent in the United States and by 42.5 percent in the U.K. in the last seven days of...

Our Nation’s history is defined by discovery, ingenuity, and innovation. Americans are known for their resourcefulness and ability to find solutions to a wide range of challenges, including the development of technologies that advance our security, health, and prosperity. This resourcefulness has been a driving force of economic growth and human development since the founding of our Nation, and our future depends on the continued protection of our intellectual property. On World Intellectual Property Day, we renew our resolve to protect and secure the works and innovations of American artists, inventors, and other creators who continually push the boundaries of...

Another offshore vessel attacked in Gulf of Mexico NIKOLAY TORKIN News April 17, 2020 8:16 am Offshore accommodation vessel TELFORD 28 was attacked in the evening Apr 14 at Cuidad Del Carmen Anchorage, Mexico, Gulf of Mexico, according to Offshore Engineer news website oedigital.com. Understood it was a robbery, pirates looting both staff and vessel’s valuable items, and escaped. One crew was injured and taken to hospital, his life is not in danger. Pirates attacks in this area have become regular. Offshore accommodation vessel TELFORD 28, IMO 8769638, GT 13062, built 2007, flag Gibraltar, owner Telford Offshore.

MAERSK offshore supply tug attacked in Gulf of Mexico Erofey Schkvarkin News April 15, 2020 1:51 pm Offshore tug, supply ship MAERSK TRANSPORTER was attacked and boarded by armed pirates at night Apr 12 in Gulf of Mexico off Cuidad Del Carmen, Mexico, roughly in the same area where 3 days earlier Italian supply ship REMAS was attacked. Attack was carried out in same manner, too. http://www.maritimebulletin.net/2020/04/14/italian-offshore-ship-boarded-by-armed-pirates-in-mexico-waters-video/ Pirates took several crew as hostages and looted the ship, taking with valuable items. Crew luckily, weren’t hurt. Offshore tug, supply ship MAERSK TRANSPORTER, IMO 9388649, GT 4678, built 2009, flag Denmark, manager...

Offshore vessel provider Telford Offshore's offshore accommodation and hook-up unit Telford 28 was attacked earlier this week while anchored in Mexico. One crew member was injured.

A Berlin official, who accused the U.S. administration of “piracy” after 200,000 masks for the city police went missing, backtracked Saturday and said the masks were ordered from a German firm. In a statement distributed by the city mayor’s office and senate a day earlier, Andreas Geisel, Berlin’s senator for the interior, was quoted as saying a delivery of FFP2 masks only made it as far as Bangkok before it was “confiscated.” He had said the consignment was ordered from a U.S. firm and “we are currently assuming that this is related to the U.S. government’s ban on mask exports.”...