The Pirate Bay raised eyebrows last week when it announced that it would sue CIAPC, an anti-piracy organization, for copying its website. While The Pirate Bay's rhetoric was rich with irony — a spokesperson told TorrentFreak that "stealing material like this on the internet is a threat to economies worldwide" — the group's threat now appears to be serious. The file sharing site says in its blog that it has asked the Finnish police's Economic Crime unit to investigate the alleged copyright violations of CIAPC.

"Stealing material like this on the internet is a threat to economies worldwide."

The Pirate Bay alleges that CIAPC copied its design, including the CSS stylesheet, for a campaign website that directs visitors to legal alternatives. (Admittedly, CIAPC's logo for the fake site, a sinking pirate ship, is more of a remix than a ripoff.) But the website ripoff is obviously not something The Pirate Bay considers a real threat; copyright laws are hardly sacrosanct for a site that's reviled by copyright protectionists internationally for facilitating piracy. Instead, the group is looking to make a point by using anti-piracy tactics against the organizations that wield them. "We feel that we must make a statement and therefore we will sue them for copyright infringement," a TPB spokesperson told TorrentFreak last week. "If not even [recording industry lobby] IFPI and their friends can respect copyright, perhaps it's time to move on?"

"While The Pirate Bay may have a positive view on copying, it will not stand by and watch copyright enforcing organizations disrespect copyright," reads a statement issued today by the site. "It's funny that we have to teach the copyright lobby the meaning of the law." For its part, CIAPC seems welcoming to the idea of a lawsuit, with the group's head telling Ilta Sanomat that the suit would de-anonymize The Pirate Bay's operators.

In its statement, The Pirate Bay calls out a police raid CIAPC initiated against a 9-year old girl for illegal downloading — which saw her Winnie the Pooh laptop confiscated — and says that any damages awarded will be used to buy her a new computer.