The Pirate Bay Has Been Bought By A Public Company [Updated...]
from the didn't-see-that-coming dept
Details are a bit scarce at this point, but Martin alerts us to the news that The Pirate Bay has apparently been sold to a public company for 60 million SEK (about $8 million US) -- at least according to a press release from the supposed buyer, Global Gaming Factory X (GGF). Apparently it's 30 million SEK/$4 million in cash and another the rest in shares in GGF. The company claims the acquisition will be complete in August, and that it will "launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners." Separately, it appears GGF is also buying another technology company, called Peerialism.Apparently GGF operates internet cafes and gaming centers in Sweden, and also offers software for managing internet cafes as well.
I assume more details will be forthcoming soon (we'll update the post as necessary), but this raises a variety of questions -- in part about the ongoing lawsuit and the lingering jailterms for the four people who were on trial. Considering it was always quite amorphous who actually "owned" The Pirate Bay, it makes you wonder who sold it and who gets the money. Also, since the guys on trial insisted they actually didn't make much money from The Pirate Bay, they may actually be seen in a worse light after this news, suggesting that even if they didn't make money from ongoing operations, they may have cashed in on the sale. All in all, quite a surprise, and we look forward to additional details.
Update: Ok! Martin alerts us to the fact that Peter "brokep" Sunde has confirmed the deal and provided some details via a Twitter interview. Martin, helpfully, translates:
Daniel Goldberg:So... that answers some of the questions (and raises a few others!). The money is not going to these guys, but will go towards funding internet political activism. Also, apparently the official ownership of The Pirate Bay had been in the hands of others who are not clear.
@ brokep Is this correct? http://bit.ly/1YR0m
Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Yes.
Daniel Goldberg:
@ brokep What a thing! Who gets the money? Who owns the TPB?
Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Foreign company, with demands from our side to finance a fund for internet projects. We get no money.
Daniel Goldberg:
@ brokep Cool. What do you mean internet project? Will you not have to use the money to cover the damages?
Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg Internet Project in the form of political activism, etc. TPB changed hands in 2006 already to not be sued.
Daniel Goldberg
@ brokep Congratulations, the scoop! Who is the owner of TPB today?
Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg It's partly why we've have been so sure that lawsuits against us is pointless in the end ... :-)
Peter S Kolmisoppi:
@ danielg0ldberg I do not think that I may say for legal reasons. But they are people we trust. And have conditioned things too..
Update 2: The official blog post from The Pirate Bay basically says the same thing as the interview above, and suggests that the site operators felt that the service needed new blood to power it and keep it evolving.
Update 3: Apparently The Pirate Bay is also close its tracker and remove the torrents it hosts itself, instead just will rely on third parties, which it will index. The claim is that this is to make the service even more decentralized, but it is a bit of a headscratcher.
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Filed Under: copyright, deals, sweden
Companies: global gaming factory x, the pirate bay
Reader Comments
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Blog post
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lets rename them to
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Re: lets rename them to
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Pirate Bay Goes Kosher
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The business model seems to rely on letting seeders get a share of the savings made possible to ISPs and content providers by distributing the load and keep the load within the network of an ISP to reduce their costs.
I listened to the press conference, but have to say it was very confusing.
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Given that Global Gaming Factory X is a public company...
*shudder*
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Re: Given that Global Gaming Factory X is a public company...
It's not like any one of a billion people in this world couldn't setup another tracker to replace TPB, They would simply be wasting their money. I'm sure that this move has illegal downloaders worried about their security and have probably already moved their traffic to other sites... If the Entertainment industry is trying to shut down illegal file sharing one site at a time, they are going to be bankrupt long before their brains could fathom a business model change.
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Sad...
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They have found yet another way to dodge away from legal issues. My feelings are that the winners of the most recent lawsuit will file suit to stop the transaction and ask to take possession of the site themselves as compensation.
Dropping the tracker and such is a clear sign that they felt guilty or responsible at some point.
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Re:
Why do you think that?
The argument brokep is giving is that by not hosting the tracker on the search indexer it becomes harder to bring down the whole network if either the search indexer or tracker host is taken down.
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Considering they are stock market listed, I suspect that rumor is just sour grapes from one of the many faithful that just woke up and realizes that TPB was all for profit in the end.
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the site still works
i'm not really seeing the impact so far.
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Re: the site still works
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It has to be a joke.
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IP logs and many more lawsuits filed...
I don't think the site has ever really kept IP logs. Now that doesn't mean it won't in the future, but if that's a worry then don't use TPB. There are plenty of other places to go.
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Decentralize != Close
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Re: Decentralize != Close
Wake up everyone! It's piracy - you only go through this much crap if you are trying to break the law and get away with it.
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Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
Yes, as dissidents throughout the world have found out.
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Re: Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
Worse than that, you guys still stand up for it even as TPB guys show you their true colors: Pile of cash, and pile of shares in a company that has almost doubled in value overnight. They did it for the money, they got rich, and now they are laughing at you. Don't you get it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
No, we're talking about a class of people that think it's overkill to have people snooping on our emails/internet connections/etc. for the nominal interests of a handful of corporations.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
Please show example? Is anyone actually wire tapping your internet connection or reading your email and looking at exactly what data you are receiving? Or are you upset because people make public posts and broadcast availablity of stolen / infringing material off of their PCs using P2P software? Sucks when "the man" has people who can see the information you are sharing with the public, no?
So, outside of that situation, got any real examples of personal DATA decoding and extraction?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
The new IPRED law gives anyone who present a couple of screenshots and claim that some someone behind a specific IP-address infringed on their copyright the possibility to reveal the identity of that person.
Let's say I'm a ruthless company that wants to attack an anonymous blogger who is critical of my company. Wouldn't it be very convenient to be able to reveal his/her identity? How many high profile anonymous bloggers would remain anonymous if anyone can get their identity by claiming they infringed on their copyright? The evidence doesn't even have to be real. How would a court ever know if the evidence was fake. The person who's identity the court decides should be revealed has no way of defending himself, either in person or via some kind of representative so the court just get one side of the picture.
See the problem now?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Decentralize != Close
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Sigh.
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Separating the tracker from the web page
Not at all. If one party runs both the web site and the tracker you could in principle cross-reference the hash sums in the tracker with the hash sums in the torrent files in order to examine what kind of files are being shared. If you isolate the tracker it will only see hash sums and lists of peer - no file contents, no file names and no file descriptions will be available whatsoever. The tracker then has no knowledge of what is being shared and it would (in theory at least) be harder to claim liability for those who operate it.
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I can see your username, which would appear to be something of a solution.
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Goodbye TPB
Another Kazaa/Morpheus foolsplay.
P2P is meant to be free not taken advantage of but then again these idiots need to make their riches off somewhere I guess.
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