Pirate Bay Sale is Sinking

The Pirate Bay's shot at legitimacy may be over before it even began, as Swedish firm Global Gaming Factory hasn't produced enough money to buy the legendary torrent tracking site.

GGF has a week to come up with $7.8 million, TorrentFreak reports, but that seems unlikely as the company's key business relationship is crumbling. Wayne Rosso, the former Grokster CEO who joined the new Pirate Bay to broker deals with the music industry, has already jumped ship. He told TorrentFreak that GGF wasn't coming through on several promises, and has yet to pay him or his partners.

Really, though, the idea of a legal Pirate Bay, revealed in late June, seemed far-fetched from the start. GGF was hoping that The Pirate Bay's user base could be tapped for extra bandwidth, which would be sold to Internet service providers. This would generate revenue for the site, but it would also subsidize users' membership fees. Rosso was working on bringing the music industry on board, so users could download all they wanted.

The problem, as many have pointed out, is that a bandwidth-sharing scheme assumes The Pirate Bay has a critical mass of users. But illicit-file-sharers are a fickle lot, more loyal to the idea downloading free music, movies, and software than to the site that had served them for so long. Pirate Bay has no certainty of heavy traffic -- never mind the fact its new business plan is unique and untested.

Rosso said the enthusiasm from at least one label was encouraging, but it seems the concept will have to wait for another day. As for The Pirate Bay, it's not clear what will happen to the site if the sale indeed falls through. The Pirate Bay's founders are fighting to keep the site running while its legal battle continues on appeal, but the damage to its reputation -- as a place to get content illegally, mind you -- won't easily wash away.

Here was a site that once made a point of publicly ridiculing copyright lawyers and content owners for sending takedown notices, and had mocked the Swedish court system during the copyright infringement trial it eventually lost. Trying to cover those court fines by working with the very entities that had sought for years to bury The Pirate Bay was a shocking reversal.

If there is a code of honor in the media piracy underground, it was violated with the GGF deal, and I don't see how The Pirate Bay can recover.

Izvor: PC World

I da su skupili tih 8 miliona, bacili bi ih niz vjetar, Pirate Bay i legalni download (tj. placanje) ne ide...

Peter Sunde sues Mr. Kuk

The press representative of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, announces that he is filing criminal charges and lodging a lawsuit for defamation in Swedish court against Mr. Tim Kuik of Stichting BREIN in the Netherlands.
This is a response to the blatant and outrageous claims publically made by Mr. Tim Kuik.
Recently, he has claimed in international press that The Pirate Bay operators and Peter Sunde are engaging in criminal so-called DDoS attacks against the web site of Stichting BREIN.

These statements were made without any form of evidence presented by Mr. Tim Kuik and can only be considered a personal attack against Peter Sunde on purely political grounds, designated to hurt his professional reputation.

We are also researching previous statements attributed to Mr. Tim Kuik that may become additional parts of our complaint.
- "We do not accept any more of the nonsense where anti piracy organisations claim that we have some sort of absurd criminal behaviour. We want people to be aware of all the laws that are broken by our political opponents in order to silence us" says Peter Sunde.

The Swedish court has not yet set a date for the court hearing but Peter Sunde is looking forward to it.
- "I am sure there will be no other outcome for this except that Mr. Kuk will have to make an apology and also pay fines for his crimes".

Stichting BREIN apparantly lodged a lawsuit against Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij in The Netherlands. None of the defendants was even informed by a court about the hearing which took place two days ago.
- "Today we got information about the hearing after a journalist contacted us. We have sent an angry letter to the district court of Amsterdam about this and we're very certain the court will have to throw the case out the window", says Gottfrid Svartholm.
"None of us live in The Netherlands, operate from there or do even own the site they are suing over. There are so many errors in this lawsuit that it's almost a crime to spend the courts time this way!", says Fredrik Neij.

Posted 07-23 12:09 by oldpb

Izvor: TPB Blog

Pirate Bay Offers DJ Joel Tenenbaum’s “$675,000 Mixtape”

Swedish BitTorrent tracker site offers visitors the 30 songs he was convicted for illegally downloading.

Two weeks ago Joel Tenenbaum was convicted of copyright infringement for illegally downloading 30 songs using the KaZaA P2P program. At $22,500 per song for a total of $675,000, it was nearly 2.5 times the $9,250 per song and $222,000 total handed down to Jammie Thomas in the country’s first file-sharing case to go to trial that preceded him.

Many file-sharers, and in the BitTorrent community especially, have shrugged off the verdict as the last throes of an industry desperate to stay relevant in a world that for all intents and purposes no longer needs them.

Record labels are little more than marketing and financing vehicles with the Internet becoming the tool for instant, global distribution.

In any event, I’m sure many reading this have downloaded some of the 30 songs Tenenbaum was convicted for and then some. Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay is, perhaps taking one last jab at the music industry before it goes legit on August 27th, has changed the site’s homepage to mockingly offer the “RIAA Approved DJ Joel $675,000 Mixtape” for users to download.



You have to hand it to those guys, the Pirate Bay guys sure do put on one hell of a show.

Stay tuned.

Izvor: ZeroPaid

Pirate Bay Getting New Logo

Warns people not to be upset when their “t-shirts, tattoos, or similar” become obsolete.

Global Gaming Factory is set to complete its acquisition of Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay on August 27th and item looks as though the deal won’t include the logo and “some graphical details.”

From the sites:


I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m sure they want to have something to remember the site by. But, without the ubiquitous logo won’t GGF have a tougher time trying to convince people to visit the site?

Perhaps not. Maybe all GGF needs to be concerned with is price and selection. After all, it does have to compete with the free content people can easily find on alternative public and private BitTorrent tracker sites.

Stay tuned.

Izvor: ZeroPaid

Znači ako sam dobro shvatio, oni su krivi, ali site i dalje nesmetano radi i od njihove presude na ovamo sigurno su se hiljade i hiljade raznog materijala razmjenile.

Kazna je nepoštena, a neka mi neko objasni šta je site slične tematike? Njihove osnivače ne mogu naći? A sprovode pravdu nad ovim 4 jadama.

Šta je sa onim što je i Google dokazano da je poput Pirat Bay?

jel jos drze onu naftnu platformu?

Biggest Irish ISP blocks Pirate Bay

AN IRISH ISP has decided to buck the trend and start censoring sites that the music industry does not like.

ISPs have insisted for many years that they are not responsible for what their punters find online. But it seems that Eircom is falling all over itself to block Internet access to Pirate Bay from September 1st.

According to the Irish Times, the move follows an email from Irish record labels. Most ISPs told the music industry where to get off.

However under an out-of-court agreement with EMI Records, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music in January, Eircom agreed to cut off customers found to be repeatedly downloading music illegally. The deal also required Eircom to cut off access to Pirate Bay if requested. Now the music industry has called in this demand.

Cable TV operator UPC, which has more than 120,000 broadband subscribers, announced that it would not comply with a request to block access to Pirate Bay.

The High Court had issued an order on July 24th requiring Eircom to block the site. In his written notice, Justice Peter Charleton said Pirate Bay was "dedicated, on a weird ideological basis" to stealing copyrighted material.

BT Ireland confirmed that it also has refused a request from the music industry to block access to the site. A spokeswoman said the firm "believes there is no legal basis for such a request".

All this effort by the music labels is a bit of an Irish joke as Pirate Bay has been bought out and is about to go legit.

There is another small problem for the ISPs. If they accept that the music industry has a right to tell them to censor content, they open themselves to be sued by every other tin pot pressure group who wants Internet connections switched off.

All those seeking to protect children from discovering sex until they are in their 40's, and religious loonies who want to stop people from saying bad things about their daft religion, could also demand that the ISPs become responsible for the content their subscribers might be able to access online. µ

Izvor: The Inquirer

Sweden launches criminal probe of Pirate Bay sale

Sweden's Economic Crimes Bureau has begun an investigation into some of the events surrounding the planned acquisition of The Pirate Bay by Global Gaming Factor X.

Swedish newspaper SvD reported Saturday that authorities are looking for possible insider trading after Global Gaming's stock rose sharply a week before the company announced plans to acquire The Pirate Bay--the best known BitTorrent tracker in the world, which was used by millions to pirate films.

Trading of Global Gaming shares was halted by AktieTorget, a Swedish exchange, on Friday after officials there requested proof that Global Gaming had enough money to complete the sale. Global Gaming has yet to produce the required documentation. Until officials get the proof they need, they said they won't allow the stock to be traded again. The investigation and Friday's halt of trading were unrelated, SvD reported.

The news of the criminal investigation comes as several of the people involved with Global Gaming have cast doubts on the company's ability to pay for The Pirate Bay or, at minimum, get the site up and running anytime in the near future.

Separately, SvD also called into question the veracity of some of Global Gaming's press releases. Global Gaming issued a release on July 31 and claimed that it had rejected an informal $10 million bid for The Pirate Bay from John Fanning, who along with nephew, Shawn Fanning, founded Napster. Fanning presumably would buy the site after Global Gaming purchased it, but Global Gaming said that it had rejected Fanning's overture.

Again, Global Gaming's stock rose in the days before the company released that information, according to SvD.

According the press release issued by Global Gaming, Fanning's offer had come via Wayne Rosso, who worked for Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming's CEO, for three weeks before leaving. Rosso said that when he walked away, he did so because of doubts about whether Global Gaming had the financing to pull off a Pirate Bay sale.

Rosso said late Friday evening that he never delivered such a message from Fannning.

"The press release was patently false," Rosso told CNET News. He said he told managers at AktieTorget the same thing and said he would testify in court if asked.

Fanning also denied that he ever gave Rosso any offer to deliver to Pandeya, according to SvD's report. So why didn't Fanning come forward when the press release was first circulated?

"I thought it was harmless, but misleading," Fanning told the Swedish newspaper.

Pandeya called Fanning a "liar" in an interview with SvD. He said in an interview with CNET News that the insider trading investigation had nothing to do with him and that no one he knew had done anything wrong. He said the acquisition would go ahead. Global Gaming's leaders apparently will decide on Thursday whether to go ahead with the acquisition.

Izvor: CNET

Pirate Bay bidder loses chairman

Updated at 11:25 a.m.: To include quotes from Swedish stock exchange official.

The chairman of Global Gaming Factory X, the company that announced in June it would acquire The Pirate Bay, is stepping down, according to documents filed with Swedish authorities.

Magnus Bergman filed documents Friday with the Bolagsverket, an official registry in Sweden that stores information on companies, such as the names of directors, how many shares they own, and earnings reports. Bergman indicated in the filings that he would no longer be affiliated with Global Gaming, a company that regulators and the Swedish media have begun to heavily scrutinize.

Peter Gonczi, vice president and head of market surveillance at Aktietorget, the stock exchange where shares of Global Gaming are traded, told CNET News on Sunday morning that Bergman called him on Friday and told him he was leaving the company.

Bergman, who did not respond to interview requests, filed the papers following a report in CNET on Thursday that revealed Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming's embattled CEO, had not begun preparing the technology needed to launch a new Pirate Bay site. The news startled many in Sweden's technology circles because it meant that a week before the acquisition is supposed to be completed, there was no technology platform to support a new Pirate Bay. The old Pirate Bay was the world's best-known BitTorrent tracking site, a tool that helped millions located unauthorized and free movie and music files.

Show us the money
On Friday, AktieTorget officials halted trading of Global Gaming's shares after they were unable to obtain proof that the company possessed enough money to complete an acquisition of The Pirate Bay and of Peerialism, a peer-to-peer technology company. Pandeya said in June that Peerialism would create the technology platform that would support a new Pirate Bay.

Gonczi offered more details about what happened on Friday. He said that after he asked Pandeya for proof of his financing, Pandeya put him in touch with a "well-known securities firm" in Sweden. Gonczi said the person he spoke with said the firm has the money but was unsure of whether the deal has been finalized. Pandeya has said for weeks that the money was already in place. Before trading in Global Gaming is allowed to resume, Gonczi said he will have to see more proof.

Pandeya was not immediately available to comment on Gonczi's version of events but said Saturday he was skeptical that Bergman had left.

"I met Magnus yesterday at 2 p.m. (Friday)," Pandeya said. "(Bergman) also (spoke) with AktieTorget at around noon...If he resigned, he would have told me and AktieTorget and they would have sent out a press release."

It should be noted that it is not up to Swedish stock exchange AktieTorget to issue press releases about the movements of board members for individual companies, a Swedish businessman told CNET.

In addition, it was reported in Sweden that Global Gaming's former chief technology officer and accounting firms had filed claims with a government agency that collects debts and alleged that Global Gaming owed them money. The former CTO, Johan Sellstrom, also claimed that Pandeya personally owed him money.

On June 30, Swedish newspaper Di.se interviewed Pandeya and he acknowledged that the company had liquidity problems in the past but cited Sellstrom and Bergman's strong personal fortunes to bolster his claims that the company was in good financial health.

What does it mean that both men are now gone?

All of this has served to undermine Global Gaming's credibility and raise doubts about the company's ability to buy The Pirate Bay, which has suffered a series of crushing legal setbacks over the past six months.

SvD, a Swedish newspaper, has also reported that Sweden's Economic Crimes Bureau is investigating possible insider trading at Global Gaming. A week before Global Gaming announced its plan to buy The Pirate Bay for about $7.8 million, Global Gaming's shares rose sharply without any major news driving the increase.

Izvor: CNET