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PIRATE BAY

Pirate Bay buyer suffers new setback

New question marks have been raised over Global Gaming Factory X (GGF), the company that plans to purchase Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, after the resignation of its chairman.

Published: 24 August 2009 08:04 CEST
Pirate Bay buyer suffers new setback

Magnus Bergman submitted his resignation to the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) on Friday, according to a report in Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).

Bergman’s resignation is the latest in a series of setbacks to befall GGF after the previous departures of board member Johan Sällström and adviser Wayne Rosso.

According to Peter Gönczi, the CEO of market exchange Aktietorget, where GGF stock is listed, the resignation of the chairman is an additional obstacle for the resumption of trading in the company’s shares.

GGF will remain on the exchange’s observation list and trading will not be resumed on Monday, despite previous comments to the contrary by CEO Hans Pandeya.

“Aside from the money there are obviously a series of other questions that need to be straightened out,” Gönczi told SvD.

The Local reported on Friday that trading in GGF stock had been suspended after reports that Pandeya was being pursued by the Swedish enforcement service for mounting unpaid debts.

Johan Sellström confirmed that he considering suing Pandeya for money he alleges he is owed.

Furthermore Pandeya is also reported to have outstanding tax debts of around 780,000 kronor ($111,155).

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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.