In a somewhat surprising turn of events, massively popular torrent tracking site The Pirate Bay has announced it is in the midst of being acquired by software company Global Gaming Factory X for approximately $7.8 million. The new owner allegedly plans to re-launch as a legal, content provider-friendly portal.
This follows a rather public and dramatic trial that found the site guilty of assisting copyright infringement to the tune of $3.5 million, and being summed to Dutch court through a process server over Twitter (which has to be a first). Interestingly, and though we have reports to the contrary, the official Pirate Bay blog maintains its acrimonious, defiant tone with a promise of continued no-holds-barred file swapping:
If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And – you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.
Meanwhile, GGFX CEO Hans Pandeya is singing a different tune:
“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 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.
The move is scheduled to be finalized in August. As our pals at Idolator point out, the timing of these events and the site’s future plans to compensate copyright holders takes place on an interesting stage, given their current legal messes and notoriously indignant and unwavering attitude. While most piracy cases, even the more heated ones, shut down sites rather quickly, The Pirate Bay always managed to outlive its peers, and with a “devil may care” attitude and flamboyant flair for rhetoric. It has been interesting waiting to see when its story would come to an end, and it now appears at least the end of a chapter nears.
