The Pirate Bay. Sold, to the man with the eyepatch and a parrot

**melvbot** · 30-06-2009, 05:42 PM

BREAKING: The Pirate Bay Sold For $7.8 Million

Today, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB has announced it has acquired The Pirate Bay website for 60 million SEK, which is roughly the equivalent of 7.8 million dollars.

This was almost immediately confirmed by The Pirate Bay. Although the title of their post is entitled “TPB might change owner,” from the text of the post it is obvious that the site has indeed been sold.

Two facts strike the eye: the incredibly small amount for which The Pirate Bay was sold, compared to its huge popularity and worldwide influence, and the fact the site which has always been perceived as independent and quite controversial, was sold at all. The second fact explains the latter: yes, The Pirate Bay is one of the top 100 visited websites in the world, but it (and its owners) is also encumbered by a recent loss of a very important lawsuit.

**baldrick** · 30-06-2009, 05:52 PM

deal is not signed and sealed until August

**melvbot** · 30-06-2009, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by baldrick

deal is not signed and sealed until August

I didnt see the link to the press release at the bottom. Even so I cant understand what they would do with it when they take it over. Another Napster style scenario or just run it as it is now?

**Butterfly** · 30-06-2009, 06:00 PM

why would a company buy such a liability ? wasn't it another silly Swedish company that bought some other controversial Internet company and got done with it ?

**friscofrankie** · 30-06-2009, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by Butterfly

why would a company buy such a liability

Dunno btu a traffic rank of 110 - 130 over the past few months might have something to do with it. comparing traffic rank with Google. I'd say with any kind of content the site could develop a decent amount of advertising revenue. Demographics might change over time. But the domain name is sitting pretty right now. If the buyer has a plan in place the investment could pay out it the buyer doesn't have a plan in place they can lose the momentum they now have rather quickly. Be interesting to see what will done over the next year or so.

**peterpan** · 30-06-2009, 06:32 PM

you know Frankie a whore is only as good as the beer goggles the punter is wearing

**friscofrankie** · 30-06-2009, 08:03 PM

Yeah and the general public always has +10 goggles on. Or so it seems.

**ItsRobsLife** · 01-07-2009, 02:11 AM

The Pirate Bay sold for £4.7m

The Pirate Bay's founders are set for a multi-million windfall after selling the controversial file-sharing website for 60m Swedish crowns (£4.7m).

By Rupert Neate
Published: 11:16AM BST 30 Jun 2009

Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, left, and Peter Sunde, said
The Pirate Bay site had been sold for a "great bit underneath its value"

In April, the four Swedish men behind the website were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay $3.6m (£2.2m) after they were found guilty of providing a conduit for consumers to breach copyright on hundreds of millions of songs and movies. The men - Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström - are appealing the sentence.

The buyer, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X, said it recognised that The Pirate Bay, one of the world's largest file-sharing websites, must comply with international copyright laws.

Global Gaming said the website needs a new business model which "satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary".

Hans Pandeya, chief executive, said: "We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site."

The Pirate Bay's founders said the site was being sold for a "great bit underneath its value" but the sale is essential to secure the website's future.
"On the internet, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen," they said in a statement.

"It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!

"TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site."
The founders said the profit form sale will fund a foundation to promote free speech and freedom of information on the internet.

The Pirate Bay has also announced plans to launch a video streaming service that is billed as a rival to YouTube. The site, dubbed The Video Bay, is still in beta, and will give web users access to thousands of clips, including music videos, many of which currently infringe copyright laws. It is not yet known how the deal with Global Gaming will affect this project.

A spokesman for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said it was monitoring developments, but had no further comment to make about The Pirate Bay’s latest move.

The Pirate Bay sold for £4.7m - Telegraph

**Bexar County Stud** · 01-07-2009, 06:17 PM

Here's a LA Times article that describes the new Pirate Bay's proposed business model (which sounds like a joke IMO):

Convincing Pirate Bay's reported 20 million users accustomed to getting content for free into paying customers will an extremely difficult task, but Pandeya said he plans to make an enticing offer.

"To compete with free file sharing, you have to beat it," he said. "What's better than zero? Well, that's paying somebody $1."

Global Gaming Factory plans to pay Pirate Bay users to let their computers be part of a worldwide peer-to-peer system that can transmit data for Internet service providers like AT&T and Comcast. Theoretically, it could vastly reduce the bandwidth costs of ISPs, which are struggling to keep up with the rapidly growing amount of traffic moving through the 'Net, much of it because of illegal piracy.

I've never used Pirate Bay much. Private trackers are where it's at.

**Butterfly** · 01-07-2009, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by friscofrankie

Dunno btu a traffic rank of 110 - 130 over the past few months might have something to do with it. comparing traffic rank with Google. I'd say with any kind of content the site could develop a decent amount of advertising revenue.

traffic is not going to make up for the millions they are going to be liable for with the RIAA, absolutely non-sense those idiots could think traffic is going to pull them off, at best it's going to expose them to lawsuits

I can see a big Goodwill write-off for that company in the coming years,

where is Napster today ?

**ItsRobsLife** · 01-07-2009, 07:51 PM

Napster is still going but in a very diluted form as many comapnies won't license their audio and film to them.

I think what has happened here is it is the name 'The Pirate Bay' that has been sold and the content will soon be stripped.

Very clever of the Swedish guys. Rather dumb of the new owner.

**Butterfly** · 01-07-2009, 08:13 PM

the kids were smart to sell, claiming it was cheap or a bargain is to live in lala land IMO.

Anything above $1 was already making out like a bandit.

**melvbot** · 01-07-2009, 09:47 PM

Cash for Pirate Bay file-sharers

By Daniel Emery
Technology reporter, BBC News

The Pirate Bay's new owners say file-sharing will be encouraged
The new owners of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay say users will be paid for sharing files.
Global Gaming Factory (GGF) paid 60m kronor (£4.7m) to take over the site.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, GGF's Hans Pandeya said that the only way to beat illegal file-sharing was to make something more attractive.
"We are going to set up a system where the file-sharer actually makes money," he said.
According to Mr Pandeya, GGF's chief executive, the business model for The Pirate Bay would be that it continued to be a file-sharing site. The only difference - at least in terms of content - would be that the files would be hosted legally, rather than stolen from copyright holders.
"We're a listed company so everything we do has to be legal; content providers need to be paid and have their wishes and demands met," he said.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Cash for Pirate Bay file-sharers

**PlanK** · 02-07-2009, 06:21 AM

So being a good netizen I seed a file back to a ratio of 2.0 or similar because that's the concept of file sharing. The new owners will pay me to share this file? That's good. The one big problem is who's buying these files?

**ItsRobsLife** · 02-07-2009, 07:41 AM

They hope to make money from a percentage of the ISP revenue.

Sure there must be a simple phrase for that, but yeah you know what I mean.

**Butterfly** · 02-07-2009, 07:50 AM

^^ don't ask, they are still trying to figure out that one

or maybe the RIAA will buy the torrents to catch those who are sharing

Brilliant Evil Plan !!!

**PlanK** · 02-07-2009, 07:55 AM

An excellent plan...

Use a front company, catch all 20 million users, sue them for a million each and they've made... um... a lot of money.

**melvbot** · 25-10-2009, 03:16 PM

BBC NEWS | Technology | Pirate Bay back in the courtroom

**melvbot** · 18-11-2009, 12:15 AM

The Pirate Bay Tracker Officially Shutting Down for Good
The Pirate Bay, the largest, most popular BitTorrent tracker on the internet, has faced seriously troubled times this year, and today, the site's operators announce that they're officially shutting down their tracker for good. They're putting a positive spin on things to all-things-BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak--talking about trackerless solutions that haven't really seen a ton of adoption just yet from users (though trackerless solutions are supported by most popular BitTorrent clients)--but their tracker's demise will certainly mark the end of an era. The site's still operational for magnet links, but The Pirate Bay tracker (with .torrent file downloads) as you knew it is on its way to Davy Jones' locker, and so on with pirate-speak references. [ TorrentFreak]

**melvbot** · 27-11-2009, 01:29 AM

Mininova Deletes All Infringing Torrents and Goes ‘Legal’ | TorrentFreak
another one gone, hey ho.....

**PlanK** · 27-11-2009, 03:00 AM

Shame.

5 more already on line to replace it, but the content gets dilluted everytime. Soon we'll all have 10 different private torrent sites to search to find specific stuff.

**StrontiumDog** · 27-11-2009, 11:44 AM

Yep, it's a changing landscape and not one I'm happy with.

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