The Pirate Bay Sold To Software Company, Goes Legal

[Pikarya]

http://i43.tinypic.com/rsz9le.jpg

The Pirate Bay Sold To Software Company, Goes Legal | TorrentFreak

According to gaming company Global Gaming Factory X, it is in the the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for $7.8m (SEK 60 million). The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by August and will see the site launch new business models to compensate content providers and copyright owners.

Software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) says it is in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay and file-sharing technology company Peerialism. GGF claims to have the biggest network of internet cafés and gaming centers in the world.

The changeover of ownership is scheduled for August 2009, whereby GGF will take over the operation of the site.

The company says that after it has completed the acquisition it will launch new business models so that copyright owners get paid, which is clearly a huge diversion from TPB’s previous modus operandi.

“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 Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.

“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary,” said Pandeya.

“Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers’ need faster downloads and better quality,” he added.

GGF will acquire the site’s domain names and sites for SEK 60,000,000 ($7.8 million) - SEK 30,000,000 in cash and the rest in newly issue shares.

File-sharing technology company Peerialism will also be acquired by GGF for a total of SEK 100 million, of which at least SEK 50 million will be in cash.

According to GGF, Peerialism has developed a new P2P distribution technology which will be used on The Pirate Bay. The technology is said to be backwards-compatible with BitTorrent although details are scarce at the moment.

At the time of writing, shares in GGF are up 155% - this will quickly become outdated.

lol

[Blabj]

Irony.

[Odesseiron]

I read this this morning on Kotaku. Wow, this sucks. Download everything you can now from there, folks. I have about 10 things at the moment going, and will surely get more before the switch happens in August. Guess I'll be using Mininova and Isohunt!

[oldoldman]

And the forces of the internet had to work 1% harder to find information free online.

[510Meeze]

If they can generate add revenue to cover costs, I can imagine this becoming a fairly lucrative idea.

[scrockstar]

If they can generate add revenue to cover costs, I can imagine this becoming a fairly lucrative idea.

My guess is that they are going to start charging to let you download and maybe add some seedboxes to help compensate for the fee.

It might be something along the lines of what netflix does with their streaming service. Only that you might pay $15 a month to get faster legal downloads.

[Xiona]

i dont see this working, at all. if people have to pay for using TPB then that site i suspect will become a ghost town. its not like there arent other free options available.

[Cephius]

People will just live with Demonoid or Isohunt or whatever other tracker they have. Most hardcore torrenting people don't even touch public trackers. This = changes nothing.

[Leif]

Let's face it. The only business model internet users accept is the "free" one.

[Alleya]

I would use a service like this if it made any sense to do so. The whole I reason I pirate anything (which is actually rare) is because the retail cost is just too high for what I'm actually getting. If I could buy a DRM-free CD for $5 that wasn't a classical recording from Naxos, I would.

[Olo401]

Let's face it. The only business model internet users accept is the "free" one.

iTunes would like to see you in the conference room sir..

[Not Kuno]

iTunes would like to see you in the conference room sir..

He said internet users, not Apple tools.

[510Meeze]

He said internet users, not Apple tools.

So what do we call people who still buy CDs and DVDs?

[LogainDiabolos]

So what do we call people who still buy CDs and DVDs?

Fossils.

[kuronosan]

Consumers. Next question.

[Mojo]

What a couple of hypocrits.

[Ziero]

Fossils.

My Ipod just broke so I'm glad I'm a dinosaur and have all my music on CDs.

Plus a HD full of movies and music just doesn't look as good on your shelf as a row of DVDs and CD cases.

[Mojo]

My Ipod just broke so I'm glad I'm a dinosaur and have all my music on CDs.

Plus a HD full of movies and music just doesn't look as good on your shelf as a row of DVDs and CD cases.

I'd rather stream my movies over the network and acquire some soulless yuppie art to adorn my now empty shelf.

[Ziero]

Soulless yuppy art? I can't say I'm a fan of that kinda stuff

[Tyche]

Books on the shelf look much better than CDs/DVDs on the shelf. Like the above, I stream from the PC to the PS3 to the TV.