Guy Who Didn't Buy The Pirate Bay Last Year, Now Pretends He's Buying It Again... From Himself

from the delusional dept

Wed, Apr 28th 2010 11:02am — Mike Masnick

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

14 Comments

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JoeNYC, 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:35am

First to Print
This is the problem with the never-ending zeal to be first to print a story. Fact-checking suffers and you get, at best, inaccurate stories, at worst, outright fraud.

Shameful "journalism".
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Nastybutler77 (profile), 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:44am

This jackass is claiming to have new software that will pay seeders micropayments for sharing their files over the "new" PB site when it relaunches, yet he offers no proof and is vauge on the details. I've never seen someone sling so much bullshit so publicly knowing full well that at some point he'll be proven to be full of it. This guy has got some huge cajones on him, I'll give him that.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:51am

I can't hear over this bridge Im trying to sell you.
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JoeNYC, 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:59am

US Attorney in Boston
I guess the US Attorney in Boston is swamped with all the fraud charges over the "Big Dig" and has no time for this guy.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 12:17pm

How did he immigrate so quickly...?
Being a legal immigrant to the US (from Australia) and having jumped through all the legal hoops (which took about 8-9 months - and that was relatively quick) my first question in reading this story was "how did he move over so quickly?"
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 12:22pm

Re:
So wait. If he buys TPB, all I have to do to make money is seed torrents? I'm gonna be RICH!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 2:20pm

and he would of got away with it if it weren't for those rascally kids
My guess, is he never intended to buy the pirate bay this time around. but he got so much bad press, and there's a lot of misconception about who owns PB, that I think he's trying clear the last company's name.
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Blatant Coward (profile), 28 Apr 2010 @ 2:37pm

Re: How did he immigrate so quickly...?
He's in IT so he must have a H1-B Visa.

He owns a company! full of compooooters!
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Blatant Coward (profile), 28 Apr 2010 @ 2:39pm

Re: How did he immigrate so quickly...?
Plus why would Billboard do fact checks as simple as doing an internet search on this guy, only pirates and bloggers would use google.
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who, 28 Apr 2010 @ 5:01pm

I only wish i lived in a country
that protected the rights of its own artists and companies while at the same time not protecting foreign works unless they also have distribution in that 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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who, 28 Apr 2010 @ 5:13pm

technically.
Technically, even all of the old Soviet Spy programs written on their equivalent of the ENIAC and UNIVAC During the Cold war Are in fact protected by the DMCA. all that would have to happen is the current rights owner, the Russian government, or others to send a lawsuit over to us.

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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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 5:30pm

sounds like he is pulling a 'teleblend' move.
(no idea if more than maybe 10 people will understand get that one)
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:08pm

Re: I only wish i lived in a country
COPYRIGHT(wrong) needs to be rewritten. Entirely.

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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Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2010 @ 11:12pm

Re:
No, I don't get it. I'm too lazy to go Google it, too.

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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