Swedish firm to acquire and legalise The Pirate Bay

by Gareth Jones, revolutionmagazine.com 30-Jun-09, 09:50

LONDON - Swedish software firm, Global Gaming Factory, has agreed to acquire The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (£4.6m) in a bid to legitimise the illegal file sharing service.

GGF has also agreed to purchase technology company Peerialism, which has developed next generation file-sharing technology.

Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to use Peerialism's technology to legitimise The Pirate Bay by launching new business models that will see record labels and artists properly compensated for the use of their material.

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

The transactions are scheduled to be completed by August.

The Pirate Bay has moved to calm users' concerns over the deal, saying the acquisition will allow The Pirate Bay to evolve. "It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody," the company said on its official blog. "We need that, or the site will die. And letting The Pirate Bay die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!"

Last April, the founders of The Pirate Bay were sentenced to a year in jail and fined $3.6 m (£2.2m) for running the site, which is one of the largest file-sharing opperations on the web. The case had been brought on by a number of groups from the music and movie industry.

Comments

david miron - 30/06/2009

This whole deal smells fishy. Anyway you read it it stinks. Check out my thoughts on and CARTOON on the sale of the Pirate Bay here http://www.pcdisorder.com/2009/06/pirate-bay-kosher-treasure-found.html

Andrew Nicholson - 01/07/2009

TPB are pushing this as a way to get around file sharing though the use of API's and passing on responsibility for bit torrent sharing anonymously to clients around the globe. If we can trust the Swedes, and they've given us no reason to believe we can't, then this really is the next big step for file sharing. LONG LIVE PIRATE BAY!