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PIRATE BAY

Debt collector hunts Pirate Bay buyer

Hans Pandeya, the CEO of Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the company planning to buy The Pirate Bay, has been reported to the Swedish enforcement service (Kronofogden) for mounting unpaid debts.

Published: 21 August 2009 12:46 CEST
Debt collector hunts Pirate Bay buyer

Johan Sellström, a Swedish IT pioneer and former board member of GGF, has reported Pandeya to the service asserting that he is owed more than 6 million kronor ($840,000), according to a report in business news website DI.se.

Johan Sellström has also confirmed that he is considering suing Pandeya for the money he claims he is owed as the enforcement service procedure can take time, he told the newspaper.

Sellström, who was one of the founders of the IT consultancy Icon Medialab, was recently cited by Pandeya as evidence of the financial strength of GGF.

The former GGF technical director claims that he has outstanding claims against the company totaling 1.6 million kronor.

Hans Pandeya is also reported to have outstanding tax debts of around 780,000 kronor, the newspaper reports.

The service has made attempts to inform Hans Pandeya over the claims against him but has not been able to confirm receipt.

Trading in the shares of Global Gaming Factory X AB have been immediately suspended, the Aktietorget exchange stated in a press release on Friday afternoon.

GGF announced in June that it planned to purchase the popular downloading website The Pirate Bay for 30 million kronor.

Pandeya announced in the beginning of August that the purchase was set to be rubber-stamped by shareholders by August 27th at the latest.

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PIRATE BAY

Sweden now owns Pirate Bay domain names

The Swedish state became the unlikely new owner of two domain names used by The Pirate Bay after a court ruling on Tuesday.

Published: 19 May 2015 14:31 CEST
Sweden now owns Pirate Bay domain names
The Swedish state now owns two Pirate Bay domain names. Photo: Vilhelm Stokstad/TT

In its ruling the Stockholm district court awarded Sweden the domain names piratebay.se and thepiratebay.se. 

The case marked the first time a Swedish prosecutor had asked for a web address to be wiped off the face of the internet, Dagens Nyheter reports. 

“A domain name assists a website. If the site is used for criminal purposes the domain name is a criminal instrument,” prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad told the Swedish daily earlier this year. 

Sweden’s Internet Infrastructure Foundation, which controls the Swedish top level domain .se, opposed the prosecutor’s move to prohibit any future use of the two Pirate Bay addresses.

The court agreed that the foundation had not done anything wrong and conceded that it could not force the group to block certain domain names, Dagens Nyheter reports. But by awarding the addresses to the Swedish state the court effectively ensured that they will not be sold on to another owner. 

The file-sharing service was temporarily knocked off line in December after police seized servers hosted at a data centre in a nuclear-proof bunker deep in a mountain outside Stockholm.

But seven weeks later the resilient file-sharing behemoth was back on its feet and Tuesday’s ruling is unlikely to knock it off balance for long, as the court cannot prevent The Pirate Bay from continuing to run sites on other domains.

The Pirate Bay, which grew into an international phenomenon after it was founded in Sweden in 2003, allows users to dodge copyright fees and share music, film and other files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site – resulting in huge losses for music and movie makers.

In 2009 four Swedes connected with The Pirate Bay were found guilty of being accessories to copyright infringement by a Swedish court. 

They were each give one-year jail terms and ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) in compensation.