ICANN might be the “official” administrator of top-level domain names. They give out all the .com, .net, .org and other well known domains to all the Web sites you know and love. There are alternatives, however, and one of the best is OpenNIC.

TorrentFreak has learned that OpenNIC is now offering a .pirate domain for those who want to register a domain with their service. Registration is free so you can create all kinds of .pirate domains that you could ever want. As TorrentFreak points out, the only drawback is that only people using OpenNIC’s DNS servers can access these domains though.

OpenNIC isn’t new to the domain registration game. They offer a wide variety of top-level domain names for users to take advantage of. Some of the more interesting domains are .geek, .parody, .indy, .fur, .gopher and .micro. The .pirate domain name is not being spearheaded by OpenNIC though as Travis McCrea, deputy leader of the Canadian Pirate Party, is the one behind it.

He says that the free flow of information is threatened by the governments of the world, so these kind of efforts are required. The .pirate domain and OpenNIC are efforts to keep the Internet open. It’s these kind of tools that allow people to get around Internet censorship.

TorrentFreak points out that some of the more popular .pirate domains like their own have already been accounted for. Everybody is going to want a .pirate domain so it’s good to keep the more popular domain names out of the hands of users who would want to abuse them.

The RIAA and the MPAA might get a little bent out of shape if they catch wind of the new .pirate domain. They’ll probably call it out as being only about theft and piracy, when in reality it’s all about the free spread of information. It’s the same way these groups treat the Pirate Party. They’re not advocating that you go out and steal people’s livelihood, but rather that the Internet remain open and in the hands of the people.

As an aside, you could use OpenNIC and thepiratepay.pirate to get around that pesky UK enacted censorship of The Pirate Bay. There are of course other ways that don’t require you to change your DNS server.