Guy Who Didn't Buy The Pirate Bay Last Year, Now Pretends He's Buying It Again... From Himself
from the delusional dept
Yikes. You may recall last year there was a lot of news around the announcement that a company called Global Gaming Factory (GGF) had bought The Pirate Bay and was going to turn it into an authorized service. However, a few days later, after seeing an interview with GGF's CEO, Hans Pandeya, we expressed skepticism that the deal would ever get done. Not only did Pandeya seem clueless about pretty much every detail (while contradicting himself multiple times), he mentioned that the deal hadn't actually been approved by his shareholders. And, as more and more details came out, it became clear that the deal was totally dead in the water. There were some insider trading charges. Shares of GGF were suspended from trading multiple times. Those brought on to do the deal were bailing out, claiming Pandeya had massive credibility problems and that the company didn't actually have the money to make the purchase. Indeed, the money never showed up, Pandeya had his assets frozen by the Swedish government for unpaid taxes, and everyone forgot about GGF.Yesterday, however, Pandeya magically popped back up -- now living in Boston, and apparently running a new company, called Business Marketing Services Inc.. He claimed that he was, once again, buying The Pirate Bay for $10 million, and the story sounded nearly identical to the one last year. It still involved Pandeya, and still involved a totally unworkable plan to make the site an authorized distributor of music. The whole thing was surprising -- and even odder if you read that link above, is that the reporter never even mentions the failed sale from last year, or Pandeya's connection to it. Even Billboard, who you would think would know better, reported on the "announcement" from Pandeya as if it were legit.
If anything, it looks like Pandeya is simply playing the same game again, except at an even more bizarre level. He's now claiming that GGF actually did buy The Pirate Bay last year (it did not) and that he's now buying it from GGF. But, of course GGF doesn't own The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay folks are claiming that Pandeya's claims are a blatant "fraud." Greg Sandoval has all the details in the link above. Apparently "Business Marketing Services" was an OTC penny stock company that Pandeya somehow bought, which has basically no assets. It was previously owned by a pit boss at a casino and apparently was in the business of selling calendars of women in bikinis -- not that it made much money from it. It's an old trick for a company that wants to appear as a public company but can't go public. You find some defunct company that is trading as an OTC company and "merge" with it, and suddenly you're a "public company." The method is quite frequently used in questionable ways, and it seems like this time is no different.
So, no, The Pirate Bay has not been sold. Pandeya is still making claims he cannot live up to. He's trying to buy the site from his previous company -- whose own stock trading was suspended for questionable activities -- but that company never actually bought The Pirate Bay.
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Filed Under: delusions, hans pandeya
Companies: global gaming factory, the pirate bay
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First to Print
Shameful "journalism".
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Re:
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US Attorney in Boston
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How did he immigrate so quickly...?
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Re: How did he immigrate so quickly...?
He owns a company! full of compooooters!
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Re: How did he immigrate so quickly...?
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and he would of got away with it if it weren't for those rascally kids
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I only wish i lived in a country
What the swedish government says to the world is that we will protect firms and products that take the time to invest in sweden,
but we wont protect products not intended for release here where the complaining company has not invested even one nickel into the Swedish economy.
I say, good job and keep it up, guys.
about the only thing that sweden will poke TPB about is swedish made software and games, etc.
back home here, they do the opposite.
Our own DMCA severly needs to be re written.
Number one is time lapse and distribution.
If after 15 or 20 years you choose to no longer make your product available commercially in some form, or available for download for a small fee, their ought to be certain stipulations that the author gives up his right on that version of it and it passes into public domain, unless they come out with a new version playable on modern hardware. also this point wouldnt be lost on time either. regardless, all of the original charachters, etc in the game they would still retain copyright to.
So for example, nobody in their right frame of mind could legally produce a counterfeit set of Mario Bros drinking glasses, or other products because the right to the charachters for marketing accessories with new software products would in fact be preserved.
Also at the same time anybody trying to Run 1981'S Mario Bros Game on their PC shouldnt have to worry about lawsuits, as well as someone running some old crusty software that never was intended for and never in fact had a release in the united states.
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Re: I only wish i lived in a country
The DMCA just needs to be repealed and go away. Don't even broach ACTA.
Bill Clinton was too busy...oh never mind.
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technically.
personally, i wish they would because then the ignorance of the whole mess would be exposed, and certain states would start to pass amendments limiting it like they love to do with hotter issues.
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(no idea if more than maybe 10 people will understand get that one)
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Re:
He is pulling an Insider Trading move, and has his buddies pump and dump the penny stock. Except he is an idiot and gets caught TWICE.
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