While the US Navy may be busily monitoring Iran Navy activity in the Strait of Hormuz that didn’t stop them on Thursday from rescuing 13 Iranian fisherman who were being held by pirates in the Arabia Sea.

The US Navy received a distress call from the fishing vessel after it was boarded by pirates one month ago.

After the Navy raid on the ship fifteen pirates were detained and are being held by the US Navy.

According to reports the men aboard the vessel were kept in harsh conditions and were forced to help the pirates.

In the meantime the freed hostages were being sent home by the U.S. government and Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent Josh Schminky said the military has attempted to treat the fisherman as the would want to be treated.

“We went out of our way to treat the fishing crew with kindness and respect,” he said.

While Iran may be at odds with the United States over their growing nuclear ambitions the captain of the Al Molai says Schminky ”expressed his sincere gratitude that we came to assist them. He was afraid that without our help, they could have been there for months.”

The rescue comes less than a week after Iranian officials told the U.S. Navy carrier not to return to the area as tensions continue to rise with the United States preparing more sanctions against the country and any country that engaged in trade with Iran.

The countries military presence  just recently concluded 10 days of war games in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil transportation hub they have threatened to close down if the U.S. imposes any further sanctions.

Do you think the U.S. Navy made the right decision in helping the Iranian fisherman?

U.S. Navy Rescues 13 Iranian Hostages From Pirates is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Inquisitr

Having been around the web for as long as I have you come across some really stupid arguments as government and old media companies fight piracy on the web but this one from the British Transport Police has to be the stupidest and craziest argument I have seen yet.

It all starts with that billboard you see in the image above which says the following:

“A bomb won’t go off here because weeks before the criminal pirating films was caught by monitoring his internet history. Pirating films funds terrorism and organized crime. Report it today.
Confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline
Call 0800 789 321″

In other words if you are a pirate or support piracy or just against governments being able monitor your internet usage then you are all for killing babies.

Up until this point the fight against piracy has been centered around the idea that piracy supports terrorists but this new angle has to be not only offensive but incredibly idiotic.

via Techdirt

Some of the craziest logic for fighting piracy is a post from: The Inquisitr

Ahoy ye bilge-sucking landlubbers, and welcome to International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Yarrr, that be right: Monday September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day, a celebration of all things piratey – or at least, piracy as it was in the Golden Age of Piracy, not the scary new modern kind that sees armed men with AK-47s capture innocent tourists at gunpoint.

This decidedly unique holiday has its origins in 1995 and, bizarrely enough, came about from a sports injury.

John Baur (Ol’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap’n Slappy) of Albany, Oregon were playing racketball when one of them suffered pain and reacted with a yelp of “Aaarrr!”. From that moment, the two friends declared the date a new holiday.

For many years, it remained an inside joke between the pair, until Baur and Summers sent a letter about their new holiday to humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Barry liked the idea, and began promoting it, leading to rapidly expanding media coverage.

Baur and Summers now earn extra cash by selling T-shirts, books, and other merchandise related to their invented holiday on their website. Which, let’s face it, is pretty good going for two blokes who randomly made up a holiday from a racketball game.

If YOU want to take part in International Talk Like a Pirate Day, it’s fairly simple: just throw some pirate talk into your everyday conversation. Possible phrases that you could repeat until people stop talking to you include:

Ahoy, me Hearties! – (“Hello, my friends!”)
Blow me down! – (“Holy Crap!”)
Booty – (treasure)
Lad, lass, lassie – (younger person)
Old Salt – (an experienced sailor)
Pieces of eight – (coins found in pirate stashes)
Scallywag – (mild insult)
Thar she blows! – (whale sighting)
Yo Ho Ho! – (expression of cheer)

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, Mateys is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to demonizing no-one holds a candle to the record labels and their constant assertion that pirates are the worst scum on the planet and they are costing the industry boatloads of money.

This attitude has been laughed at for some time by anyone who really understands how our new media distribution system works but you have to admit that when someone of former Google CIO and EMI executive Douglas C Merrill stature says that this whole pirate thing is crap you might want to listen.

At a recent keynote speech in Sydney, Australia, Merrill had some rather interesting things to say about pirates and the music industry.

At EMI he took up the impressive position of Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business, despite admitting this week that he knew the music industry was “collapsing”.

“The RIAA said it isn’t that we are making bad music, but the ‘dirty file sharing guys’ are the problem,” he said during his speech as quoted by ComputerWorld.

“Going to sue customers for file sharing is like trying to sell soap by throwing dirt on your customers.”

But those “dirty file-sharing guys” had an even dirtier secret. During his stint at EMI, Merrill profiled the behavior of LimeWire users and discovered something rather interesting. Those same file-sharing “thieves” were also iTunes’ biggest spenders.

via TorrentFreak

It was this kind of talk, which Merrill expressed publicly while at EMI that ended up getting him tossed from the company.

The truth record companies don’t want to hear – pirates are biggest iTunes customers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Where are your lawsuits now, music industry?

Piracy was down by roughly a third in the UK in 2008, but streaming was way up in the same period. Savvy UK teenagers are using sites like Pandora, YouTube, Grooveshark and Spotify to stream content and music to their computers in lieu of filesharing. One former pirate and current streamer told the Guardian:

“I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.”

The shift seems largely inspired not by some moral obligation to maintain music industry profits, but rather, sheer convenience. As has been shouted at the music industry time and again, the business models that will flourish alongside technology are those that offer convenience and aren’t ripping consumers off left, right and center.

It seems that the music industry can accept that the entire revenue generating model has changed and change with it, using tangible merchandise like tour tickets, memorabilia and the like to boost profits alongside ad-supported streaming. Or they can continue to behave like litigious buggy-whip factories and keep trying to circumvent technologies that bring fans to music most efficiently. Which do you think it will be?

Piracy down, streaming up in the UK is a post from: The Inquisitr

The war on Somali Pirates celebrated its first victory last week when news went around the world that the Indian Navy had managed to sink “the mother pirateship” off Somalia. It was a good line, but it turns out the Indian Navy didn’t even come close.

What the Indian Navy sunk was a Thai fishing trawler that had been hijacked by pirates. Oh, and there was at least one innocent crew member on board the boat as well. Fourteen other crew are “missing.”

A Cambodian sailor was rescued four days later by passing fishermen and now recuperating in a hospital in Yemen confirmed the story.

Failing to accept responsibility, an Indian Navy spokesman claimed they were fired upon by the ship and reacted to that, after all its really difficult to spot the difference between a fishing boat and “pirate mothership.”

Ship loads of fail in this case, well one ship load of fail anyway.

Whoops: turns out the Indian Navy didn’t sink a Pirate Ship last week, they sunk a hijacked vessel instead is a post from: The Inquisitr

The official International Talk Like a Pirate Day site is here, and while it’s archaic as a gentleman o’ fortune, it’s a reasonable place t’ start.

12seconds is celebrating the day by opening up the site to anyone wanting to leave a pirate message. It’s a great chance to get in on the closed alpha test. Details here.

Google is offering a pirate search engine here. Get your taste of Webbe, Engravin’s, Crews and Direct’ry, and if in doubt, you can always click the button labeled I be feelin’ lucky.

FriendFeed is in on the act, complete with a pirate logo, and many members joining in the fun with pirate names and pirate themes.

Arrrr, there be local pirate sites as well. A few include Aussie Pirate Day at Yaaarrr.com, the exceedingly dry (at least in the heading) British HQ for the event, and Talk Like a Pirate Day Queensland.

Look also for local parties. In Melbourne, there’s PirateTUB in place of the regular MTUB Twitter event.

If you want information on the hottest pirate ever to grace the screen, start here.

Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a post from: The Inquisitr