The file sharing site, PirateBay.se, following a Swedish Court ruling that it take down all of its sites, is now re-directing users to its original domain site, ThePirateBay.org. Whether this is a safe harbor for the company remains to be seen given the hundreds of plaintiffs, many American, that claim copyright violations. The .org registry is based in Virginia, on U.S. soil.
Following the Swedish court ruling, Pirate Bay founders refused to take down their two Swedish sites, and the court then ordered them confiscated. Thus, the return to .org.
Ahoy there! The Pirate Bay sails back into its .org domain https://t.co/qskyqC4Z4X pic.twitter.com/oIrO6aFq4t
— CNET (@CNET) May 25, 2016
Shaky Start
The Pirate Bay first established itself in 2003 as a BitTorrent file-sharing site that allowed users to download files from other users. Many of these files, of course, are music, movies, and other material protected by intellectual copyright.
Obviously, trouble lay ahead for the Swedish-based company, as major recording and movie production companies became aware of the file sharing.
The Raid
In 2006, Swedish police conducted a raid on several Pirate Bay locations and confiscated computers and servers. While the site went down for three days, it was back up with more than double the original site visitors/users. While the raid was criticized by founders as being politically motivated, victims of the pirated files have a very different take.
The Los Angeles Times had this to say.
“The Pirate Bay is one of the world’s largest facilitators of illegal downloading… the most visible member of a burgeoning international anti-copyright or pro-piracy movement.”
Charges Filed
Charges were filed against the Pirate Bay in late 2007, and a trial began in 2008.
The defense gave what has come to be known as the “King Kong Defense,” arguing that the founders and operators of the site merely set a place for like-minded users to meet and that it had no control over what users were sharing with one another.
The court did not agree, and four individuals, including the co-founders, were sentenced to a year in prison and fined approximately $3.5 million, as accessories to the violation of copyright laws.
Through appeals, the prison term was reduced. However, the plaintiffs appealed as well, stating that the fines did not take into account damages for lost income as a result of a conviction that was only as accessories to a crime.
The site continued to operate under several domain names.
The Pirate Bay returns to .org domain https://t.co/xhY9p2CDdc pic.twitter.com/o5ukPig4qj
— SlashGear (@slashgear) May 25, 2016
A Second Raid
In December 2014, another raid was conducted by Swedish police, again confiscating computers and servers.
According to the national coordinator of IP enforcement, Paul Pinter, as reported by Torrent Freak , “There has been a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm. This is in connection with violations of copyright law.”
This raid was in support of an ongoing 2013 case in which anti-piracy prosecutors were demanding that the PirateBay.se and ThePirateBay.se sites be taken down. Also named in the prosecution was the Swedish organization that maintains all .se sites, Punkt SE.
The Stockholm District court sided with the prosecution and ordered the sites taken down.
Now, in an attempt to circumvent the ruling, CNET News reports that the site has re-opened under its original domain, as ThePirateBay.org.
Fate Of Pirate Bay Is Iffy At Best
Within the U.S., some major players have been a part of the prosecution of the Pirate Bay in Sweden, among them Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia, and 20th Century Fox. It is likely that, having been successful is shutting down other pirating sites, these companies will quickly go after the Pirate Bay as well.
[Image via Shutterstock]