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Court Refuses to Shutter Tracker Linked to Pirate Bay
A Stockholm court is refusing to order a Swedish internet provider to cut off a site the studios claim is The Pirate Bay’s new torrent tracker. The Pirate Bay, the world’s most notorious filesharing website, announced two weeks ago it was abandoning its tracker , which had been the world’s largest — and a magnet for litigation — for years. The move was prompted by the emergence of DHT and PEX technologies, which allow peers to locate one another without a tracker, the site’s operators wrote.
Continue reading »Swedish Retailer Lets Go of Pirate Bay Logo
The Swedish online retailer that trademarked a near replica of The Pirate Bay’s iconic logo has agreed to withdraw registration of what has become an enduring symbol of online piracy, Swedish media reported Wednesday. The move by Sandryds Handel came two days after Peter Sunde, one of The Pirate Bay co-founders, complained to Sweden’s Patent and Registration Office. The Pirate Bay, now 6 years old, has always left the mark in the public domain, to which it has been returned — meaning anybody can market the symbol.
Continue reading »Judge in Pirate Bay Appeal Removed for Bias
The Pirate Bay saga took another twist Tuesday as one of the appellate judges set to hear the appeal of the co-founders’ criminal copyright convictions was removed over concerns of bias. The Swedish judge in question, Fredrik Niemela, owns an unstated number of stock options in the music streaming service, Spotify, which has content deals with members of the Recording Industry Association of America. Oddly, the content industry asked the Svea Court of Appeal to remove Niemela from the three-judge panel ahead of next month’s hearing.
Continue reading »Vote: What’s Next for The Pirate Bay?
Thursday’s de-listing from a Swedish stock exchange of The Pirate Bay’s corporate suitor is likely to scuttle the planned $8.5 million purchase of the world’s most notorious BitTorrent site. The removal of GGF from the AktieTorget exchange was based, in large part, on the exchange’s findings that the Swedish company’s CEO, Hans Pandeya, never had the financing to go through with the deal, and was just trying to manipulate the company’s penny stock prices. That leaves the proprietors of the 5-year-old Pirate Bay without an obvious exit strategy at a time of unrelenting legal pressure.
Continue reading »Defiant Pirate Bay Crew Evokes Churchill
The Pirate Bay managed an end-run around the Swedish courts and is back online Tuesday. The site’s four cofounders each face a year in prison and millions in fines following their April convictions in a Stockholm court for facilitating copyright infringement. They remain free pending appeal.
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