Piratbyrån, a close relative of The Pirate Bay, is a Swedish organization that campaigns for liberalized copyright reform. Although the two organizations are distinct, their roots are similar. And while Piratbyrån plays no role in the organizational hierarchy of The Pirate Bay and all this BitTorrent tracker represents, it didn't stop two travelers from being detained for carrying a Piratbyrån t-shirt.

According to the Swedish publication 'Dagens Nyheter', Tomas Eriksson and his girlfriend were departing Denmark to attend a counter G-8 summit in Germany. They were preparing to board a ferry in Rostock harbour, when, according to a rough translation, the passengers were searched by police. That's when the Piratbyrån t-shirt Tomas' girlfriend had in her luggage caught the eye of harbor security.

The iconic Piratbyrån logo is very similar to the jolly roger, with a cassette substituting the skull as the only change.

Apparently this raised the warning flags of harbor security, and the pair were brought to the local police station where they were detained and refused entry into Germany.

According to Eriksson, the justification for refusal was: "[a] Threat to general order, domestic security, general health or international relations to one or several EU countries."

In this era of heightened travel security, it will not be surprising to hear more stories of misguided law enforcement.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
BitTorrent :: Trackers/Indexers

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