The Pirate Bay founders: Peter Sunde Kolmissoppi, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm.
(Credit: The Pirate Bay)Update: 4:30 p.m. PT To include statement from BREIN
Dutch antipiracy group BREIN says it has found documents tying one of The Pirate Bay founders to the company listed as the owner of the Thepiratebay.org, Reservella.
According to a blog post by Peter Sunde Kolmissoppi, one of the founders of the BitTorrent search engine, BREIN has filed a complaint against The Pirate Bay founders, who include Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm. The Pirate Bay has been outlawed in the Netherlands.
During that hearing, BREIN produced documents, including a credit report, showing that Neij is listed as CEO of Reservella. Kolmissoppi denied that Neij is connected to Reservella, and he said the documents are phony.
"We were quite sure (Neij) did not have an offshore company set up," Kolmissoppi said. "And if he did, at least he would be smart enough to not be a director in it."
Tim Kuik, BREIN's director did not address Kolmissoppi's allegations that his group forged documents in a statement issued by the group.
"Denying their responsibility and playing hide and seek is what the gentlemen of The Pirate Bay have been doing since they began their illegal business", saids Tim Kuik, BREIN's director. "We have sufficient reason to assume that they still are responsible. The company on the Seychelles looks like a thin veil to cover up what is really going on."
The Pirate Bay founders maintain that the site is owned by Reservella, a company based in the Republic of Seychelles, off the coast of Africa. This spring the entertainment industry alleged that Reservella is controlled by the founders of The Pirate Bay.
This has been an eventful few weeks for The Pirate Bay. It has been hounded across Europe, as copyright owners have chased it from one Internet service provider to the next. The site has gone down for extended periods several times, with the most recent outage occurring on Monday.
Even after some fans have given the site up for dead, it comes right back. But there's no denying that film studios, TV networks, book publishers, music labels, and anyone else that objects to the file swapping that The Pirate Bay helps facilitate is ratcheting up the pressure on the three founders.
A year-long jail sentence and a $3.6 million judgment is already hanging over their heads. Any ISP that provides bandwidth to The Pirate Bay faces legal challenges. And now the Dutch courts have The Pirate Bay in their crosshairs.
Kolmissoppi said he intends to file criminal charges against BREIN and some of its leaders for fraud.
Update: 11:05 p.m. Monday: To note that the site was down most of Monday.
The Pirate Bay was inaccessible most of the day Monday after a group representing copyright owners forced the BitTorrent search engine's bandwidth provider to cut off service, according to a published report.
NForce, the Pirate Bay's latest Internet service provider, complied with a request to shut off service to The Pirate Bay made by Netherlands-based antipiracy group Brein, according to online news site Tweakers.net.
Monday's outage followed a three-hour blackout of The Pirate Bay on Friday. The blackouts are the result of work performed by attorneys based in Sweden who are employed by the big movie studios, according to my film industry sources. The lawyers are hunting down whoever provides bandwidth to The Pirate Bay and then using the threat of lawsuits to pressure the ISPs to stop.
Black Internet, the Pirate Bay's onetime ISP, was threatened with fines in Sweden unless it cut off service. The Pirate Bay then moved to an a Ukrainian ISP, which also received threats, according to the blog TorrentFreak. NForce was next and now that company has had to comply.
Just where The Pirate Bay will go next or how long the site will be down isn't clear. The founders of the site have vowed to continue operating the site no matter what.
The Pirate Bay was down across the U.S. for at least three hours on Friday, an outage that comes as the site's latest bandwidth provider comes under pressure from entertainment companies.
CNET noted that the site was down at 1:22 p.m. PDT but appeared to come back up at 4:50 p.m. PDT. The cause for the blackout was unclear. Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of The Pirate Bay's co-founders did not respond to interview requests.
The Pirate Bay founders: Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm
(Credit: The Pirate Bay)The Pirate Bay, the BitTorrent search engine loved by file sharers but loathed by many copyright owners, has had trouble in the past few months with its Internet service providers. The most recent example came on Thursday night when a Ukrainian ISP cut off service to the site after receiving legal threats from copyright owners, according to the blog TorrentFreak.
The Pirate Bay was operational Friday morning so Enigmax from TorrentFreak speculated the search engine likely had a substitute provider ready to go. It's possible there were technical issues involved with the switchover.
The Pirate Bay was forced to look for a new ISP after a Swedish court, at the request of the trade groups representing the music and film industries, threatened The Pirate Bay's former ISP provider with fines unless it stopped servicing the site.
Earlier on Friday, Google stopped indexing The Pirate Bay but later acknowledged it booted the site from its search results by mistake.
Update 3 p.m. PT: To include an updated comment from Google.
Google said on Friday that an error caused the search engine to remove The Pirate Bay from its search pages.
"Google received a (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down request that erroneously listed Thepiratebay.org, and as a result, this URL was accidentally removed from the Google search index," Google said in a statement. "We are now correcting the removal, and you can expect to see Thepiratebay.org back in Google search results this afternoon."
Later, Google updated it's statement: "The removal appears to be an internal error and not part of a DMCA request."
Separately, The Pirate Bay's site appeared down Friday afternoon at 1:15 p.m. PT, at least in many U.S. areas.
Google didn't provide any details about what caused the error but at this point it doesn't seem to be some kind of orchestrated effort to bring down The Pirate Bay--at least on Google's part. According to Google, it was just a goof.
The DMCA's safe-harbor provision is designed to shield Internet service providers from being held liable for copyright infringement committed by users. But the provision has a certain set of requirements that ISPs must meet, and one of them includes promptly removing infringing material.
The case is a bit ironic, in that it's well-established that The Pirate Bay does not store any unauthorized copies of films, music, TV shows, or other content.
Indeed, the service can help people find pirated content, but so can a lot of search engines, including Google. The notion that the Pirate Bay would be pulled down because of a single copyright claim is sort of humorous.
If that's all that was needed to have the site kicked off, it would have happened years ago. The music and film industries, as well as other copyright owners, have complained about The Pirate Bay for years.
Peter Sunde-Kolmisoppi told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagblated that The Pirate Bay's attorney sent a letter to both Google and the companies that are suspected of being behind the allegations and demanded that the Pirate Bay be returned to Google's index. The Pirate Bay accused Google of censoring a competitor and of stifling free expression, the paper reported.
commentary Global Gaming Factory X, the little Swedish software company dogged by controversy, is facing another deadline to complete its acquisition of The Pirate Bay.
Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming's much maligned CEO, has said the deal would be completed by Wednesday.
Typically, in anticipation of a big acquisition story, I'll collect background on the companies the night before so I can have a few graphs ready when the deal is announced. The only things I'll collect Tuesday evening is a nice piece of salmon and bottle of white wine.
That is because there's a better chance that the salmon will leap from my plate and produce a signed contract with The Pirate Bay guys than there is that Global Gaming will complete the transaction. Anybody who has followed Global Gaming's story knows how truth-challenged the company has been.
Here's my prediction for tomorrow's events: Pandeya will issue yet another press release claiming his company's acquisition of The Pirate Bay has been held up yet again. Expect him to blame the latest delay on the persecution he and his company have suffered at the hands of the media, former business partners, the stock exchange it was formerly listed on, etc.
He may set another deadline.
If he does, it will be at least his third. When Global Gaming, a Swedish software maker and Internet cafe operator, announced in June that it would acquire The Pirate Bay--one of the world's most popular and controversial BitTorrent search engines--Pandeya said the deal would be completed in August. But August came and went without producing a deal.
The Swedish stock market where Global Gaming's shares once traded booted the company off for providing false information. According to the stock exchange, Global Gaming said it had the money in place to complete the acquisition (false), licensing deals with entertainment companies (false), and it had investors (if they existed they never appeared).
Here's an example of how Pandeya's view of the facts can be fluid. Over the weekend, I learned that a Swedish court had taken control of his personal assets after a former business partner claimed Pandeya owed him money.
I e-mailed Pandeya to tell him I was writing about the court's decision and asked him if he wished to comment.
"I can assure you that I will take legal action against CNET if you spread these lies," the CEO wrote.
Lies?
I e-mailed to him a copy of the court order. From Pandeya came only silence for a while and then a statement slamming his former business partner and the claim that the acquisition will be completed on Wednesday.
To tell the truth, from a strictly storytelling standpoint, I've found the Global Gaming fiasco amusing.
It can't be funny, however, to investors in Global Gaming who lost money.
Update: 2:16 p.m.: To include comments made in letter by Hans Pandeya.
A Swedish court has seized control of all assets belonging to Hans Pandeya, the CEO of Global Gaming Factory X and the man who wants to acquire The Pirate Bay.
Johan Sellstrom (pictured) is a former business partner of Hans Pandeya, the man who claims to be trying to obtain The Pirate Bay.
(Credit: Johan Sellstrom)On Wednesday, the court found that there is enough evidence to show that Pandeya owes Johan Sellstrom, a former business partner in Global Gaming, the equivalent of about $400,000, which includes interest.
The district court in Sweden ruled that the state would take control of Pandeya's assets until enough of them can be sold to pay back Sellstrom. The court said that Pandeya can appeal the decision but his assets will remain in the hands of the court until the appeal is heard.
"I was pleased to find that the Court has ruled that my promissory note is indeed genuine," Sellstrom said in an e-mail to CNET. "More importantly, they agreed that a lien against Pandeya's net assets had to be put into effect immediately in order to prevent evasive measures on his part. I look forward to a hasty process in order to minimize the damage that Hans Pandeya has caused the share holders of GGF and wish them all the luck with the acquisition."
In response, Pandeya called Sellstrom's claims "bogus." He told the court that taking away his assets could harm the Pirate Bay acquisition because it will make it harder for him to raise capital.
In the past, Pandeya has said that he would use his own assets to secure any loans he received to help him acquire The Pirate Bay. That might be tough to do if his assets are in the hands of the government. He acknowledged this when asking the court, via letter, not to put a lien on his assets.
"The application appears to be a measure to ensure payment of a claim but the approval of a lien will seriously damage (Global Gaming) and its shareholders," Pandeya wrote. "Pandeya's real estate assets and shares are being used to guarantee the acquisition. If Sellstrom is awarded a lien the acquisition will become more difficult and the value of Pandeya's assets decreased."
Pandeya also claimed that he already paid Sellstrom, when he gave him a share of a property deal that eventually went bad. Sellstrom denied this and apparently the court t believed Sellstrom.
Most of the people covering this story gave up on the possibility a long time ago that Global Gaming will ever obtain The Pirate Bay. But even the hardiest supporters of a Global Gaming acquisition, if there are any, will struggle to figure out how a deal can get done now.
As in all the setbacks that he or Global Gaming has suffered, Pandeya said that an acquisition would still get done. He has already missed one deadline but he said Friday the acquisition will now be completed on September 30.
Global Gaming has already been kicked off a Swedish stock exchange for providing investors with false information. His car, boat, and motorcycle have been seized by debt collectors.
Pandeya reminds me of the Black Knight character in the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who gets all his limbs cut off one by one but says "It's just a flesh wound."
Global Gaming Factory X, the software maker that has claimed it will acquire BitTorrent search site The Pirate Bay, has found a new stock exchange for its shares--a move that can only be described as bewildering.
Mangold Fondkommission, an independent exchange that specializes in the trading of small and medium-size stocks, issued a press release Wednesday, announcing that Global Gaming's shares were available for trade.
Global Gaming was booted off its former stock exchange earlier this month after exchange officials concluded the company provided false information about its ability to purchase The Pirate Bay.
Sweden's Economic Crimes Bureau has said it is investigating possible insider trading that is reportedly connected to a sharp rise in trading of Global Gaming's shares the week before it announced it would acquire The Pirate Bay.
Hans Pandeya, the company's CEO and majority owner, has issued so many conflicting and erroneous statements that the Swedish media now refers to anything the company does as a "circus."
A spokesman for Mangold confirmed that Global Gaming was trading there but declined to provide additional comment outside of the press release.
Meanwhile, Pandeya has continually said that the deal for The Pirate Bay would be completed by the end of the month. He has said this despite failing to provide proof to his former exchange that he had the money to acquire the search engine.
Pandeya has suggested that he would secure any loans that he got to complete the acquisition with his shares of the company. Whether the shares are worth anything remains a question.
A Swedish stock exchange has banned Global Gaming Factory X from offering its shares there after concluding the company "misled" investors about its ability to purchase The Pirate Bay.
AktieTorget, the Swedish stock market where shares of Global Gaming once traded, said a disciplinary group found the company had "provided false information," displayed "a lack of accountability," and "seriously violated" the exchange's transparency principles.
A report issued by AktieTorget's disciplinary group called into question most of Global Gaming's public statements since June, when the software company and operator of Internet cafes first announced it would acquire The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent search engine. The banishment by AktieTorget, which last month suspended trading in Global Gaming's shares, is without a doubt the most serious barrier yet to the company's acquisition of The Pirate Bay.
The story now seems less about whether Global Gaming will take control of The Pirate Bay and more about whether anyone involved will be accused of a crime.
Sweden's Economic Crimes Bureau has already launched an investigation into possible insider trading stemming from a dramatic spike in trading of Global Gaming's shares a week before the company announced it would acquire The Pirate Bay.
AktieTorget's investigation did nothing but raise more questions.
In a report issued Wednesday by AktieTorget, a copy of which was posted to the exchange's Web site, the disciplinary group hammered Global Gaming and Hans Pandeya, the company's largest stakeholder and CEO.
The group said it reviewed a list of Global Gaming's press releases to assess their accuracy. Among some of the group's findings was that Global Gaming did not possess the money to buy The Pirate Bay when the company told the public it did; the company was never in the final stages of signing a content deal with the major entertainment company it boasted about in a press release; Pandeya could provide no proof that he received a bid to buy The Pirate Bay from unnamed Russian investors.
Also in the report, the disciplinary group noted how some of Global Gaming's and Pandeya's public statements effected the market.
Pandeya has throughout denied any wrongdoing and on Wednesday continued to maintain the acquisition would get done. He blamed AktieTorget's investigators for some of Global Gamings problems.
"It will be difficult for Aktietorget to explain when we close the deal in two weeks since the funding is not supposed to be in place," Pandeya wrote to CNET News. "People will start asking questions about what has been going on. I don't think Peter Gonczi (vice president and head of market surveillance at Aktietorget) will then be as active as he has been with the press."
Pandeya has said that he will guarantee the purchase of The Pirate Bay with his own personal funds or obtain a loan using his Global Gaming shares as security. But Pandeya's personal financial troubles are now famous in Sweden. In recent weeks, photos of his car, boat, and motorcycle being hauled away by debt collectors have been splashed on front pages throughout the country.
As for his shares of Global Gaming, it is unclear whether they are worth anything since the stock is no longer trading anywhere.
Wayne Rosso, the former Grokster president who worked for Global Gaming barely three weeks before going public with concerns about the company's ability to fund an acquisition, recalled in an interview what raised some of his suspicions.
Rosso, who Pandeya hired to help him negotiate licensing deals with film and music companies, said the amount of money Pandeya cited he had at his disposal kept changing in conversations. Pandeya also kept promising to pay Rosso and his staff but the money never arrived ("The check was always in the mail," Rosso said).
When Rosso flew to London to meet with Pandeya and entertainment companies, Pandeya was supposed to pay all of Rosso's expenses but Pandeya's credit card kept getting declined.
What really spooked Rosso, however, was Pandeya's insistence that he make public announcements.
"He kept pushing for press releases," Rosso said. "He would say, 'Can't we put out a press release that we're talking with this content owner,' or he'd say 'can't we announce we're going to do a deal with that content owner?' I told him we couldn't and then I asked him, 'You don't have the money, do you?' He said, 'Well, I do and I don't.' I told him, 'That means you don't.'"
Insiders question label deal for Pirate Bay bidder
Just as the press began eying Global Gaming Factory with suspicion, it came up with funding, a potential record deal and potential buyers. How much of that was real?(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 27, 2009 1:18 PM PDT
Is Pirate Bay sold? Don't believe it
Global Gaming Factory X says its deal to acquire The Pirate Bay will go through, but nothing about this deal seems certain.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 27, 2009 7:06 AM PDT
File sharers hold vigil for Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay may be breathing its last breath, but the site revered by file-sharers and reviled by copyright owners has likely given birth to numerous progeny.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 25, 2009 4:00 AM PDT
Swedish court orders shutdown of The Pirate Bay
Swedish ISP said it was ordered to shut down the BitTorrent tracking site or face penalties. It's unclear when the site will, if ever, come back online.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 24, 2009 9:36 AM PDT
Pirate Bay founders win debt-collection decision
The official Swedish debt collector rejected entertainment industry claims that Pirate Bay founders have assets in that country.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 24, 2009 8:19 AM PDT
Pirate Bay bidder loses chairman
Magnus Bergman has filed documents to end his affiliation with Global Gaming Factory X, the company attempting to acquire The Pirate Bay.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 23, 2009 2:37 AM PDT
Sweden launches criminal probe of Pirate Bay sale
A week before Global Gaming announced it would acquire Pirate Bay, the company's stock shot up. Swedish authorities want to know why.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
• Global Gaming CEO says LA Times reporter knows investors
August 22, 2009 1:23 AM PDT
Pirate Bay acquisition appears to be unraveling
Financial questions about the company bidding for the BitTorrent tracker, as well as its CEO, cast doubt on whether a revamped Pirate Bay will launch anytime soon.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
• Trading halted in stock of Pirate Bay bidder
August 21, 2009 9:50 AM PDT
Potential Pirate Bay buyer could lose P2P partner
Peerialism was supposed to be a linchpin of the new Pirate Bay, but the company is owed money and hasn't been made privy to vital details. CEO is losing confidence in deal.(Posted in Digital Media by Greg Sandoval)
August 20, 2009 4:37 PM PDT
Global Gaming Factory X, the software maker and Internet cafe operator that allegedly plans to acquire The Pirate Bay, said three weeks ago that it was close to inking a deal with one of the four major record companies. During the past five days, however, numerous music industry insiders have told CNET News that there's no truth to that claim.
At a press conference Thursday in Stockholm, Global Gaming announced that stockholders--which amounted to one plus company CEO Hans Pandeya--met and agreed to go ahead with the acquisition of the BitTorrent search engine. Much has been written about the decision, but a sale of The Pirate Bay is nowhere near to being done.
That's due in part to the ongoing investigation into possibly inaccurate statements made by Stockholm-based Global Gaming and Pandeya. AktieTorget, a Swedish stock market, has halted trading in Global Gaming's shares and officials told CNET that they won't resume until they get the answers they want.
Click the image to see a roundup of recent Pirate Bay stories.
For file-sharing fans, who love The Pirate Bay, the Sweden deal matters because it might give some indication of what will become of the site. Pandeya has said he would charge users for access to authorized film and music files.
Here are some of the Global Gaming statements that investigators are reviewing:
• In July, Global Gaming issued a press release that the funding to acquire The Pirate Bay was in place. Now, Pandeya says that the group of 30 investors originally part of the plan have backed out because of all the media scrutiny and the alleged smear campaign leveled at the company. Still, he hasn't turned over to AktieTorget the names of those alleged former investors.
• Three weeks ago, Global Gaming announced it had received a bid from unnamed Russian investors to buy The Pirate Bay once the BitTorrent search engine was acquired, but investigators at the stock exchange where Global Gaming's shares trade said the company has yet to provide proof that it received such a bid. The same situations exists with a Global Gaming announcement that it had received a $10 million offer from John Fanning, co-founder of Napster, via Wayne Rosso the former president of Grokster. Rosso was hired by Global Gaming to land licensing deals with music and film companies but walked out after only three weeks.
• On August 5, Global Gaming said it was close to reaching an agreement with one of the four major record labels, which include Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI. The sources I spoke with said some of the labels have had "early stage" discussions but not one of the recording companies has moved into what could be described as advanced talks.
"We almost have a contract ready with one of them," Pandeya told The Local, an English language newspaper based in Sweden on August 5.
Most of the statements came days after the departure of Rosso. He said he left over concerns about Pandeya's character. So, just as the press began to eye Global Gaming with skepticism, Pandeya suddenly came up with funding, a potential record deal and buyers.
What matters most about Pandeya's statements and Global Gaming's press releases is that they might have misled investors and influenced the market. Sweden's Economic Crimes Bureau has confirmed that it is investigating an unusual and unexplained rise in Global Gaming's stock that occured a week before the company announced it would buy The Pirate Bay.
Where is all this going?
You got me. I have to believe that if this were happening in the U.S., some state attorney general would have gone after Pandeya by now. The Swedes seem willing to let this play out in the press. That's fine, everybody seems to be having a good time.
At Thursday's press conference to announce Global Gaming's decision to go ahead with the deal, one of the reporters asked Pandeya if the new group of anonymous investors included any real people.
