Pirate Bay Bought For $7.8 Million, Will Compensate Content 'Providers'
Having been hammered at legally for years, it's no big surprise that The Pirate Bay is going the way of Napster: it has just been bought for a paltry $7.8 million by Global Gaming Factory, which will rebirth the least legal place on the web as a legitimate business that compensates content providers. Yup.
GGF CEO Hans Pandeya spun the spin:
"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site""[The Pirate Bay is one of 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. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."
In other words: "People love Pirate Bay because they can get things there for free. We're going to change all that and then be surprised when nobody visits the site anymore."
GGF, which runs a network of internet cafes and gaming centers, also bought German file-sharing tech developer Peerialism for $13 million, and plans to fuse Peerialism technology with The Pirate Bay, says Pandeya:
"As a result of the acquisitions of The Pirate Bay and Peerialism, GGF will have a strategic position in the international digital distribution market. File sharing traffic is estimated to account for more than half of today's global Internet traffic. The Pirate Bay has a global brand and holds a key position with over 20 million visitors and over one billion page views per month."
I'm not sure if GGF understands how page views work: once you cut off their supply to illegally traded software, those one billion monthly page views will vanish faster than a non-seeded torrent file. The deal is slated to close in August.
Pirate Bay Acquired, Will Compensate Content Providers [Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany, Video Games on 30 June 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: acquisition, global gaming factory, piracy, pirate bay
And who wins in this?
.... Pirate Bays owners of course.
They must be laughing their heads off right now.
The 7.8 million will either go towards funding their court appeal, but also guarentees they won't have more legal trouble from the site in future cases (since they don't own it any more).
Even if they lose the appeal, their fine is only 3.6 million, so the rest of the money means they'll be sorted for life (or at least quite a number of years) once they've served their meager ONE YEAR in prison ( a swedish prison of course... walk in the park compared to other countries)
as for GGF ..... what a bunch of fools. Someone has serious mental issues if they think they can wave a magic wand and suddenly turn mass piracy into mass profits.
If you take away a pirate's treasure, they'll just go find some other treasure elsewhere... probably Isohunt
oh crap, now where am i going to find episodes of Skins 1-2 hours after the premiere?
i mean, i know there are other torrent resources, but FFS...they were so fast and convenient.
http://torrents.to/
Ah, well...it seems every party eventually comes to an end.
I miss SuperNova... Guess it is time to go tracker hunting again.