Piracy has had somewhat of a Renaissance this past decade and a half. Somali pirates have roamed the Indian Ocean. Jack Sparrow was a box office smash. Napster spawned a billion intellectual pirates. People have wasted their design degrees on hip new pirate logos. People have formed religions based on piracy. But, the golden age of 21st piracy may be at a close.
As Wikipedia is going blackout because of The SOPA PIPA acts being debated in the American legislative halls and chat forums all over the globe, news is streaming in about successes against non-digital pirates. According to this report, in 2009 and 2010 Somali pirates were able to capture 26 large sea going vessels and extract huge sums of money from ransoms and stolen booty. But, anti-piracy agents got a little better hang of things in 2011. The Somali pirates were only able to capture 4 large ships. That takes a bit of luster out of your pirated facebook flag there in the corner doesn't it now Cap'n.
Somalia has recently seen the African Union and Kenya step up action against both the pirates and Al Shabaab. Kenya have really put the screws to the Somali terrorist group pushing further and further into Al Shabaab territories. This is good news for Kenya, who houses a number of refugees from neighboring Somalia. It is bad news for pirates who use the destabilized nation as home base.
More bad news came in August of 2011 when it was announced that Pirates of the Caribbean 5 was being scrapped. In more positive news though I have heard that Geoffery Rush, Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley are teaming up once more to squeeze millions of dollars out of an unwitting public by making four feature length films out of a an old Disney Ride. Coming Soon to a theaters near you "Body Wars: The Infection of the Splinter", "Body Wars: The Heart and the Chest", "Body Wars: On Death's Bed" and with a slightly altered cast to continue the ponzi scheme "Body Wars: Entering Unfamiliar Arteries".
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