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PIRATE BAY

Investors abandon Pirate Bay suitor

Global Gaming Factory X (GGF), the firm that wants to take over the Swedish file sharing site The Pirate Bay, has been roundly criticised by market watchers for not being able to prove that it has the money for the purchase.

The company’s stock is listed on the Aktietorget equity marketplace and trading in GGF stock remains suspended after being criticised for deficient information.

Aktietorget has now summoned its disciplinary committee to consider whether GGF should remain listed.

“After a meeting with the company on August 26th Aktietorget has concluded that the company can not be considered to have the capability to inform shareholders in a correct, relevant and reliable manner,” according to an Aktietorget press release on Thursday.

Aktietorget decided to suspend trading in GGF shares on August 21st and on Wednesday the decision was taken to extend this suspension.

The company writes that GGF was told to present proof that the sum of money required for completing the purchase of The Pirate Bay was available, but has not been able to do so.

GGF has meanwhile issued a statement explaining that several investors in the project have pulled out as a result of “strong concerns following recent turbulence in the media.”

While the firm has not been able to demonstrate the existence of the funds it claims that the investors are all “existing shareholders in GGF and known to the management.”

Global Gaming Factory X, which is a Swedish online games firm, claimed on June 30th that it had acquired The Pirate Bay for a sum of 60 million kronor ($8.4 million).

But recent media reports have suggested that the acquisition announcement was merely a bluff to boost Global Gaming Factory’s share price and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority has since opened an investigation into potential irregularities.

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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.

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.