In an act of either genius or madness an anti-piracy outfit turned the tables on The Pirate Bay this week by pirating parts of their website in order to show that piracy should be avoided. TPB responded by threatening to sue. But rather than back down, the boss of the anti-piracy group now says that being taken to court by the site is something they would encourage and look forward to. Sharpen the cutlasses and bring out the plank, this could get interesting.

The dispute this week was triggered by Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC who decided to launch a campaign to deter people away from the apparently dangerous world of BitTorrent copyright infringement and into the arms of warm and friendly legitimate online stores.

Nothing particularly strange about that in itself as anti-piracy groups do this all the time, but the method behind the message has developed into somewhat of a scandal.

CIAPC decided to send their anti-piracy lesson via a website they created in the image of The Pirate Bay. Apart from the site’s logo, Piraattilahti.fi looks and feels very much like The Pirate Bay but with links to torrents replaced with links to industry-approved music sites.

From an anti-piracy perspective there have been worse ideas, but the execution was quite bizarre. As soon as the campaign went live went it was discovered that the CIAPC site – which aims to send the message that copyright infringement is wrong – wasn’t their own creation.

Instead of writing original code CIAPC ripped off The Pirate Bay‘s and passed it off as their own, which is a bit like smashing someone in the face to show them that violence is unacceptable. Admittedly that kind of approach has the possibility of achieving results but it tends to erode the moral high ground a little.

Anti-Pirate Bay

Somewhat predictably The Pirate Bay were not amused. Through a statement on TorrentFreak, TPB delighted CIAPC’s opponents and file-sharing fans alike by threatening to sue the anti-piracy group.

Despite an irony overload on both sides which at one point threatened the structural integrity of the Internet itself, many people looked forward to an unlikely dream scenario in which the evil Winnie-the-Pooh-laptop-confiscators were forced to back down in the face of an unlikely but vicious pro-copyright onslaught from the swashbuckling heroes of The Pirate Bay.

Yes, really…..

Seriously though, will TPB really go through with it? Well, it seems that few people would be against it if they did, CIAPC included.

After recovering from a DDoS on his company’s site, CIAPC chief Antti Kotilainen now says that he welcomes legal action from The Pirate Bay, not because he feels he could win any case, but because the process would bring certain benefits.

Currently the people running The Pirate Bay operate in anonymity, a veil that anti-piracy companies around the world have failed to lift. Kotilainen sees potential legal action as a way to cut through the mystery.

“It is good if the people behind Pirate Bay identify themselves and the elements appear in their own name,” he says.

So has CIAPC called TPB’s bluff? Not necessarily.

As the recent TPB AFK movie showed, The Pirate Bay is not just a file-sharing platform. The site is part of a cultural movement with long-term aims and opportunities to progress on the back of a controversy like this come along very rarely indeed. The early signs are that they want to get some mileage from this week’s events.

Perhaps with an eye on what CIAPC think is their trump card – the anonymity issue – we can reveal today that TPB are considering taking action with the help of another organization with shared aims for a free and developing Internet.

More information as we have it….