The pirate bay – Download movies, music, games and more!
Usually abbreviated as TPB, The Pirate Bay is a popular peer-to-peer site offering millions of files, commonly referred to as torrents, that can be downloaded for free using BitTorrent protocol. In 2009, the three Swedes (Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij) who created this website as a platform for sharing knowledge were found guilty of enabling copyright infringement and were consequently sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a fine. Downloading files from the pirate bay is quite simple since its database is carefully categorized to enable visitors to find their preferred files quickly. Files on this website come in various forms, including audio, video, applications, and games. If you are searching for the most popular content on the site, you simply click on the Top 100 Button and if you want the recently uploaded content, you click on the Recent Button. Define the ‘Pirates’ “Pirates” are the people who use The Pirate Bay, including the registered users who share magnet links and torrent files. The number of “pirates” on the pirate bay has grown exponentially since its inception and the subsequent raid by authorities in 2006. The site owners claim to have about 5 million active users. Meaning of Torrenting When you are downloading files from the internet, you normally click on the Download button, and the file is automatically downloaded onto your device. This process downloads the entire file from one server. Torrenting, on the other hand, works differently, especially since it breaks up a file into small pieces known as packets. Also, the file you have downloaded through torrenting keeps track of the people with different packets and interchanges locations where you download it from. Through torrenting, you can download or share files for free. Although this sounds fun, it comes with various legal implications, especially since some of the downloadable files shared through this process are copyrighted. That’s why torrenting is often associated with piracy. So, when you are sharing or downloading movies, TV shows, games, applications, books, and other files through torrenting, you are exposing yourself to the risk of being prosecuted for copyright infringement. How Has the piratebay Remained Operational All Along? Despite the ongoing technological advancements and internet restrictions, the pirate bay has remained operational all through the years. This peer-to-peer sharing website continues to face constant repression by authorities from across the globe. But even with these attacks, the site remains accessible to millions of its users. The people who love tpb always find ways to evade restrictions by internet service providers and authorities to continue enjoying their favorite TV shows, movies, Apps, games, and other materials found on the site. At the moment, over 20 nations have already restricted access to pirates bay. These nations include China, United States, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and many others. But there are many other countries and regions that still allow full access to the site, including Switzerland, Brazil, Belarus, Hong Kong, Mexico, among others. Many other torrent sites have been forced to shut down their operations due to numerous litigations and market oversaturation. But thepiratebay has managed to withstand this pressure all through the years. The pirate vessel continues to navigate the turbulent sea of constant legal scrutiny, heavy fines, and nationwide blockades. One of the reasons why the pirate bays has managed to stay strong in the midst of all these challenges is its millions of loyal followers. Through donations and adverts, the website is able to continue functioning. These donations are given in the form of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Monero. Through different ways of bypassing the restrictions, the millions of tpb users are able to continue accessing the website freely from all corners of the world. But it is not clear how its legal challenges will pan out in the future. The Pirate Bay Is Older Than Most Torrent Sites Although pirate bay is not the oldest torrent site in the world, it is among the first ones. This peer-to-peer sharing platform, which was established in 2003, comes in at number four, with taking the lead followed by isoHunt and Demonoid, respectively. This torrent website was developed by a Slovenian student in 2002. Until its closure in 2004 due to constant legal threats, was the most prominent BitTorrent search engine around the globe. In 2007, piratebay acquired its domain name and relaunched it. IsoHunt: Launched in January 2003, isoHunt was once one of the most sought-after torrent sites, enjoying millions of visitors every month and cataloging about 14 petabytes of torrents. However, the site was shut down in 2013 after losing a legal battle against conglomerates of several holders of IP rights. Demonoid: Although Demonoid, which was developed in 2003, is still active, its future remains uncertain. This is largely due to the numerous lawsuits from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and copyright regulators, as well as the prolonged duration of downtime. Furthermore, it is also believed that its developer passed away, leaving it defenseless. The Pirate Bay Makes Finding Torrents Pretty Easy Finding torrent files on Thepiratebay is very easy thanks to its elaborate categories. These categories include Applications, Games, Music, Videos and Audios. The categories are further divided into various subcategories, making the work of finding specific torrents pretty easy. Therefore, you can access the content you are looking for with only one click. If you are looking for an operating system for your computer, you simply go to the Applications category and choose from the wide range of programs available, including Windows, UNIX, iOS, Mac, among others. You can also use the Recent Torrents option to search for random content on Pirate Bay. This page is the best choice for anyone looking for new content. Additionally, you can try the Top 100 page for every category. This page even combines the most downloaded files for the last 48 hours. Why You Should Use a VPN to Access Pirate Bay With a VPN, you will be able to browse The Pirate Bay anonymously on a public network without revealing your identity. This program also prevents your internet service provider from monitoring your activities on the internet by hiding your IP address and location. Is this really necessary? It is absolutely necessary to hide your browsing history from your ISP because they are required to share this information with the authorities regularly even without informing you. It doesn’t matter whether you are doing something illegal or not, your government will know what you are doing on the internet if you do not have a VPN. Therefore, a virtual private network will hide your identity and protect you from spying eyes. What Difference Does It Make to Access TPB Using a VPN? As the most popular peer-to-peer sharing platform in the world, Piratebay offers thousands, if not millions of torrents that can easily be downloaded. With such a huge database of files, it is difficult for the website to check the legality of each file. However, it doesn’t encourage users to share or download illegal content. Besides, the pirate bay is just a host. This means that the website is not to blame when you share or download copyrighted content. It also means that you are responsible for your safety when sharing and downloading files from the site. Therefore, the best way to protect yourself is to use a VPN. How to use VPN before torrenting If you want to open links and download files from Piratebay safely, you need a VPN. Here are the easy ways to use VPNs to download content from the website. Install a VPN—download any of the popular VPNs and install it on your PC. If you don’t want the free VPNs, you can choose the affordable ones. The most common VPNs today include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, HotSpot Shield, Tunnelbear among others. Open the Interface—once the VPN is fully installed, click open to access its interface. Then, choose the safest country for your VPN. The most preferred countries include the U. S. A, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Connect the VPN—click on the Connect button or any other button designed to help you activate the application. If it doesn’t connect to the country of your choice, choose another country. Download files—when the VPN connects, find the files you want and download them. Never download a file from tpb before you connect your VPN. Disconnect Your VPN—After downloading the files, disconnect the VPN. You don’t need it to watch the content you’ve downloaded. That’s the safest way to download content from Pirate Bay. Have fun! Benefits of Pirates Bay Even with so many torrent sites and P2 sharing platforms, people still go to pirates bay for free movies, apps, TV shows, games, and music. But why is thepirate bay so popular? Here are several benefits of using the site. Free Content: Unlike other torrent sites that charge a subscription fee, pirates bay doesn’t charge anything. So, you can share and download as many files as you want for free. The website makes money through donations, merchandizes, and advertisements. So, if you want to support the site, you can donate through Bitcoin, Monero, or Litecoin. Reliable: Most torrent sites hide the identities of their owners for fear of prosecution, but the pirate bay has always made its creators known. This has earned it a lot of trust from torrent to Use: The developers of pirates bay claim that the site’s simple design was intended to emulate Google. Therefore, its interface is very simple and easy to navigate, even by novices. Resuming Downloads: Since not everyone has the time to wait for several hours for one file to download, the pirate bay has made it possible for its users to pause and resume downloads at will using the BitTorrent technology. You can even switch off your device for days and resume the download from where you stopped. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about power outages. Different Access Options: Since the main pirate bay site is always a target for censorship by authorities, more proxy and mirror sites have been created to allow users to continue enjoying their favorite torrents without interruptions. The most popular pirate bay proxy sites include: If you don’t want to use these alternative sites, you can still TPB’s Tor address to enjoy its content. Define Pirate Bay Mirror Websites A mirror website is just a copy of an original site. Most website owners create mirror sites to ease traffic on their main sites and improve their access speed. For the pirate bay, mirror sites are created by other people who are not allied to the owners of the original site. And if you are wondering whether pirate bay proxy and pirate bay mirror sites are different, their difference is very little. In fact, a pirate bay mirror serves as the pirate bay proxy site. Therefore, you can use your preferred pirate mirror site to avoid the ISP restrictions placed on the original TPB. And although you can achieve the same purpose with a VPN or an all-purpose proxy website, a mirror site is better because it remains accessible even when the original domain name is inaccessible. How to Download Torrents from The Pirate Bay The piratebay, which is owned by Sweden developers, has existed for over 18 years, offering people a simple and free way to share and download their favorite movies, TV shows, music, games, applications, and videos. If you are using the site for the first time, here is a simple guide on how to download torrents from the site. Install a Virtual Private Network (VPN) If you live in a country where Pirate Bay has been banned, you need to use a VPN to access its content. You just need to download a VPN and switch your IP address to the country where the site is allowed. Find Your Preferred Torrent Go to thepiratebay site and search for your preferred torrent. You can use the search bar on the site’s home page to search for the file. Just type its title in the bar and hit the Browse button. You will be provided with a long list of files with the name you have searched for. Make sure you choose the file with the highest number of seeders and fewer leechers. Also, go through the comments in the comment section of the file to know what other users think about it. Download the Torrent You can either drag the file to the torrent client or click on the download link. Sometimes your PC will need an extension to download the torrent. There are many torrent clients that you can use to download files from the pirate bays. This application converts torrents into usable or viewable files. Enjoy Once the download is complete, enjoy the file. Check the Status of the File Before You Download It Since the content on pirate bay is shared by individual users, it is important to check if the files you want to download or share are copyrighted. The moment you access the site, you assume all legal responsibilities that come with sharing or downloading files from it. Also, you need to understand that some ISPs and copyright watchdogs upload movies and TV shows purposely to upload files that contain spyware. Other files contain harmful malware and viruses that can infect your PC, network, or router when you download them. The good thing is that the pirate bay allows you to check the status of the file before you download it. That is the easiest way to protect yourself. The system has a three-tier, color-based system that allows you to know the quality of a file. The Pink color shows Trusted, while Green means VIP users. All These Results, But How Do I Know Which One is the Best? If you feel overwhelmed by the number of results generated by The Pirate Bay search option and want a quick way to decide which one is the best pick in terms of download speed, we have some tips for you. Towards the right side of the screen, you will see two columns names SE and LE. It’s the abbreviation from Seeders and Leechers and this is one of the most important pieces of info when trying to determine the health of a torrent. Seeders are the users that already downloaded the file and are acting as a source from where you will download parts of the file as well. If a torrent has 400 SE, it means there are 400 users connected to the tracker that offers the file you are looking for. On the other hand, a Leecher is a person that is in the process of downloading data from Seeders. So, if you want the best download speed and the guarantee your download won’t get stuck along the way, you need to check for a torrent with a high number of seeders and a lower number of leechers. Take this into consideration. When downloading a big file, let’s say 100GB, from hundreds of users, you can get it done in a few hours depending on your internet speed. On the other hand, if you download the same file from just 1 person, the transfer will take a lot longer because there could be several leechers to that 1 seeder. Also, if the file only has 1 seeder, the multithreaded download can’t take place so the same 100GB file can take up to two days to complete. Also, you may have noticed that among the search results, identical content has different file sizes. In case you were wondering why that happens, we have the answers for you. Most of the time, the difference in quality is what makes the content to vary in size. Take a YouTube video for example, while the video has the same length, choosing between 1080p and 360p quality will generate a different file size. If it’s not quality that makes the difference, sometimes it’s the file type. Especially for video files, various formats and containers can be used generating different file sizes. Another possible situation can appear when downloading software. If you know the app should be around 300MB but you find one with the same name that has 1GB, there’s a big chance there are some other tools included, or various patches and extensions. Going back to how to figure out which of the search results are what you want to download, checking the comments column is also a great idea. You will see if it was flagged as malicious or other users experienced difficulties in downloading that file. What Is the Quality of Movies Found On Piratebay? Generally, it is not possible to know the quality of files you want to download from piratebay because the site doesn’t have a way of checking the quality of files being shared by users and doesn’t offer files of its own. So, the best way to know the quality of the file you wish to download is to read other people’s comments and reviews. Only choose movies with the highest number of positive comments. Do Files on Piratebay Contain Malicious Content? Nobody can guarantee you that the files you are downloading from the pirate bay don’t have malicious content. The site only offers a platform for peer-to-peer sharing, and the torrent client you are using doesn’t check the quality of the content you are downloading. So, the only way to prevent downloading malicious content is to install a reliable antivirus program on your PC. This program detects and blocks any harmful content when downloading files from the pirate bay. The Pirate Bay – Ins and Outs Anyone who loves torrent files knows about Pirate Bay. This is a popular P2P website that shares millions of torrent files in the form of magnet links. Users are able to download data from this website using a number of BitTorrent clients. Previously, people could only use BitTorrent files, which contain metadata that is needed to download data files shared by other peers. Files on this website are placed in various categories, including Video, Audio, Games, Porn, Applications, and Other. To create an account on this website, you only need to have an email. The whole process is free. Only registered users can be able to write comments on the available files and upload their own content. Studies show that 44 percent of the uploads on Pirates Bay are movies and TV shows while porn takes 35 percent. Audios only make up 9 percent. This site has a search function, which makes it easy for users to find their favorite files. It also features several sub-categories like High-res Movies, Comics, and Audio Books. If you are a 3D enthusiast, you can find all your favorite 3D items in the “Physibles” category. Each file on the pirates bay is catalogued according to its name, date of upload and the available peers and leechers. Technical Information About Pirates Bay In the past, thepirate bay ran on an outdated web server called Hypercube. Today, the server has been made more user-friendly and able to use less bandwidth. Previously, the site used two HTTP requests per millisecond on every server. This could make your internet very slow. Thankfully, the site has been moved from only four Linux servers to more than 30 dedicated servers. Furthermore, the pirates bay runs another nine dynamic web fronts, a single database, two search systems, and eight trackers for BitTorrent. While its frontends utilize both PHP and Ligd, its backend uses MySQL. The SQL queries, static content, and PHP sessions are cached. Its two search systems run Sphinx. With Opentracker, the site can utilize a UDP tracker for enhanced coordination speed between different servers. In 2008, the site incorporated SSL encryption into its servers in response to the introduction of spying law in Sweden in June that year. The site had introduced IPv6 support but later turned it off saying it was no longer necessary. In 2012, thepirate bay replaced its torrents with magnet links. In a Facebook post, the site also announced that torrents with less than 10 peers could still use the outdated software that doesn’t support magnet links. Legality of The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay offers a massive database of movies, music videos, games, applications, porn and many others. A lot of people are afraid of using it for fear of copyright infringement. But the reality is that the site uses P2P sharing, which is legal. Some people also believe that sharing or downloading torrent files is illegal, but they are wrong. The best way to know if the files you are downloading or streaming are illegal is to check their copyright status, even if they are free. If the movie, TV show, music video or software you want to download has a global copyright protection, then you need to avoid it. But anything in the public domain is free to download and stream. If you have created the file or you hold a genuine ownership right to share it, then it can be freely downloaded or shared with TBP. Individual users are the ones to determine the legitimacy of their content. The Pirate Bay has had many legal tussles with content creators, with some even taking the site developers to court on claims of copyright violation. This has led to increased censorship of the website in many countries. How to Access The Pirate Bay from Mobile? Users that visit The Pirate Bay before 2014 know that the mobile experience on the website wasn’t exactly functional. Accessing BitTorrent was limited to a few options and the entire content on the website looked messy. Things were bad enough for the founder of TPB to describe the mobile user experience as “crap” in those days. With more and more mobile visitors on the website, The Pirate Bay started to become a lot more mobile-friendly and the experience improved considerably. However, despite the updates in mobile user experience, iOS users are still unable to download content from The Pirate Bay without jailbreaking their phones or tablets. You won’t have to worry about this aspect if you’re using an Android mobile device since Google Play offers you plenty of torrent clients to download content from TPB. The same goes for Blackberry users that can enjoy a smooth mobile experience on the website. Besides the dedicated torrent clients available for those operating systems, also offers an RSS feed. The RSSBay is excellent for customizing your mobile experience and even download content remotely, straight on the computer. No matter the operating system, The Pirate Bay is an unlimited source of content with more than 75, 000 new torrents being added every month. Make sure you don’t miss any of your favorite content and use TPB on your smartphone and tablet for instant access to all the best torrents. Accessing The Pirate Bay with I2P If you want to access the Pirate Bay anonymously, use Invisible Internet Project (I2P). This anonymous communication layer uses a devolved system that allows you to browse without exposing your personal data. It offers the same environment as Tor. Its entrance and exit channels are one-way, and it has exclusive routes for questions and replies. Additionally, this system allows messaging through diverse nodes. Basically, I2P creates traffic that is more complicated than Tor. It is suitable for accessing pirate bay and other browsing activities. You can access the torrent website using this link. In terms of popularity, I2P comes third behind Chrome, Tor and Safari. Therefore, it has few users, which makes it faster because only a few people share the total browsing load. Although I2P can be slow when used to access thepiratebay, it helps to improve your overall security. Despite its shortcomings, it offers the same effective results as Tor. Blocked in Many Countries Due to divergent copyright laws across the world, the pirate bay has been blocked in a number of countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and many others. Nevertheless, even those living in areas where the pirate bay has been blocked are still able to access the site using VPNs or changing their DNS. Pirate bay owners cannot be held responsible for any content uploaded to the website because all torrents available come from the users. Pros and Cons of the Pirate Bay Pros: 1. HONOR CODE. Peer-to-peer sharing of torrent files or any other file is controlled by an unwritten code of conduct. So, whenever you open The Pirate Bay, you become part of a community of users categorized as seeders and leechers. This code of conduct requires you to keep the files you download on your PC long enough to allow others to download them from you while also contributing new content. A balanced ratio of seeders and leechers makes the experience of using Pirate Bay better. 2. Resume Download After Interruptions. Previously, downloading files through P2P sharing was a difficult task because the download speed was very poor, making it almost impossible to get large files. It was also impossible to resume the download when after an interruption because you had to restart the whole process. But with the pirate bay, the download process has improved significantly because you can pause and resume the process at will. 3. Easy to Find Files. The process of searching for files on Pirate Bay has also improved significantly because it allows you to search from many databases at once. It also has a search bar where you can type the name of the file you want. The results of your search will be displayed in a matter of seconds. 4. Improved Seeding Process. Unlike in the past when you had to get a file from a single source, the pirate bay allows you to seed a single file from multiple sources, making the download process easy and fast. This also means that you can download files faster even with a poor internet connection. 5. Easy Accessibility. If authorities and internet providers in your country have blocked The Pirate Bay, you can still continue to enjoy its content thanks to the numerous mirror and proxy websites. You can also access the main TPB site using a VPN (virtual private network), which allows you to browse the internet anonymously. 6. Enjoy 100% Free Content The pirate bay offers its content for free. So, you don’t have to pay anything to download your favorite files or register an account. Cons: 1. Sensitive Content. Since TPB has no control over the kind of content users upload, it is very easy for you to download sensitive or copyrighted content unknowingly. Also, you can easily download malware that will destroy your computer or infect it with harmful viruses. Although this is not common, you should ensure the content you choose to download is completely safe. Difficult Files to Download. Some files on this platform are protected with sophisticated copyright procedures. This makes them difficult to share or download. Sometimes you have to install additional programs like CD-key and keygen codes to be able to use such files. However, some members of the community are very quick to find workarounds for such content. Slowing Down the Internet. Although the Pirate bay is the fastest platform to download large files from, it can also slow down the speed of your internet because torrent downloaders consume a lot of bandwidth. So, it is going to take you longer to download other types of files through other processes. To avoid this, you have to adjust the bandwidth for your BitTorrent. Expose Personal Details. When you join a P2P sharing platform such as TPB, you reveal your IP address to other users. The only way to prevent this is to install a virtual private network (VPN). Luckily, there are many free VPNs available. Impossible to Know the Quality of a File Before Downloading. There is no easy way of knowing the quality of the file you want to download before you download it. Although offers some reasonable suppositions about some of the files, there is no guarantee that the quality is good. Also, there are some evil users who just want to damage the reputation of others by uploading false information about them. So, the only reliable way to choose the files to download is to go through the comments by other users. You Have to Create a Torrent in Order to Upload Files to Piratebay Most users only know how to download torrents from thepiratebay using BitTorrent clients, but it is completely different when you want to upload a file to the platform. To create a torrent, you open your BitTorrent client and click on the File menu. Then, click on Create New Torrent. This option opens a box from which you are able to choose the file you wish to upload. You have the option of choosing multiple files or a single file. It is also possible for you to choose the whole directory using your BitTorrent client. As an avid user of thepiratebay, you may have noticed that some files are available in several data packets. This happens when several files are selected as opposed to only one. In that case, you have to key in trackers into your torrent (private or public). You have the option of using one or several depending on your needs. Finally, save your file and upload it to the pirate bays or share it with friends. How to upload files to piratebay: Go to the site. Sign up for an account or use an existing one to log in. When you are logged in, click on “Upload”. Select the file you wish to upload. Select a name, specify the category, key in the tags, and create a description. You can upload the file anonymously or display your username. Upload the file and remember to seed for as long as possible so that more people can download it fully. Since uploading files to is so simple, cybercriminals have taken advantage of this opportunity to upload fake and illegal torrents using names of popular videos and games in order to distribute unsafe malware. Therefore, you need to double-check every torrent before you click the download button. In fact, you should only choose files uploaded by well-known and verified users. The Pirate Bay Doesn’t Hide Your Identity While The Pirate Bay doesn’t offer torrent files, it hosts magnet links that provide torrent clients, such as qBittorrent, Transmission, Deluge and uTorrent with the information needed to download files from different peers directly, even without a third-party application. However, these torrent downloads aren’t encrypted, which allows your ISP to monitor all your activities on The Pirate Bay. Additionally, it is very hard for you to know whether your peers are genuine or devious. But with a paid Virtual Private Network (VPN), you can easily hide all your activities on The Pirate Bay and make sure your device is protected against attacks by harmful malware from untrustworthy peers. However, you need to understand that not all VPNs allow peer-to-peer traffic. So, choose a reliable VPN such as CyberGhost, IPVanish, NordVPN and Windscribe. These VPNs are torrent-friendly and have high speed. I Have Installed a VPN Software, How Do I Access The Pirate Bay? After you manage to access the tracker, the first thing you want to do is look for the torrent you want to download. This can be easily achieved through the fast and efficient search box on the homepage. Type the name of the file you are looking for and then hit “Pirate Search”. You will get all the torrents that match your search in a matter of seconds, to decide which one is the best pick. Top Five Alternatives to Pirate Bay KickassTorrents KickassTorrents is not new; it has always been rated as the world’s most visited torrent website since its inception in 2008. It has even overtaken The Pirate Bay in this regard. Despite the seizure of its domain by the American government in 2016, the site remains one of the best options for torrent lovers. 1337x 1337x is best known for its ability to outsmart copyright watchdogs. It has several substitute domain names that enable it to survive frequent name seizures by authorities. 1337x is a great source of movies, music videos, games, TV shows, applications and other useful files. The website accepts donations in the form of Bitcoin. Go to its homepage to access the donations link. YTS YTS, commonly referred to as YIFY, is a P2P release group focusing on the distribution of movies with amazing video quality as well as small sizes. After the original site was seized by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 2015, a lot of copycats have emerged with YTS_AG taking the lead. The great this about this site is that it only provides verified torrents. It allows you to filter your search using the quality, rating and genre of the file. All movies on this website come with descriptions to help you find what you are looking for. TorLock On TorLock, you can expect to find nothing else but verified torrents. At the moment, the site catalogues over 5. 3 verified torrent files, overtaking even Zoogle. Files
PirateBay. Official Pirate Bay Torrents. Works in October 2021
Table of contents:Last Updated: 16 September, 2021, ESTPirate Bay Torrents Makes it a Great Time to Be AliveBefore Pirate Bay Torrent files were available, people didn’t have many options to download their favorite music and only one real option for obtaining movies. You could get music from long, taxing download systems, or you could buy do anything else took a lot of effort, came with a fair amount of risk, and to find quality in these means was a rtunately, Pirate Bay came along in 2003, and since then, this filesharing website has continued to expand in catalog and cause of Pirate Bay Torrent files, it is a great time to be alive for media lovers, without a fortune to spend on overpriced Bay Torrent Files are Quick and Easy to DownloadPirate Bay Torrent files make it simple for you to download the media that you want without taking a considerable risk on of the seeders (contributors) to Pirate Bay take pride in their work and are dedicated advocates for the cause. Therefore, they strive to provide the best quality to continue to use the Pirate Bay filesharing Bay Uses the BitTorrent ProtocolThere are many different filesharing sites available. However, Pirate Bay is one of the only websites that use the BitTorrent Protocol. This protocol makes it easy and far less stressful for users to upload and download content because it spreads the burden across many different erefore, the download is only pulling a small file from each host instead of trying to drag a large file from one source. A Step-By-Step Guide to Uploading Files on The Pirate BayHousing thousands of music, videos, photos, games, and software, Pirate Bay is among the pioneering peer-to-peer sharing platforms out there. A growing number of people choose to distribute their content from the website to take advantage of its large user base. What better way to let your content known than uploading it to a free-to-use platform for everyone to access? If you are considering to contribute within the Pirate Bay community, here’s a guide on how:Before you can begin uploading any torrent file to Pirate Bay, you must register using your email successfully logging in to your account, look for the “Upload Torrent” button at the web page’s bottom. You can either upload directly through the Webform or maintain your anonymity using the Announce URL option. Many people choose to conceal their identity to prevent the possible legal ramifications of uploading copyrighted files. Some don’t like getting any recognition from the community for their though you can leave it blank, entering a torrent name can help other users discover your file. You can also put tags to be able to appear in filtered can also put descriptions about the file to let other people know about its size, format, and quality. Make sure to finalize it before uploading since Pirate Bay does not allow modifications on the, make sure to seed your torrent file for a few days until your peer network eders and LeechersMake sure to check the number of Seeders and Leechers on the torrent file before uploading it. Seeders refer to the number of users who are hosting the file. In contrast, the Leechers indicate how many people have downloaded the file in the past. It is integral to select the file with the most number of seeders for the download speed to be as smooth and seamless as possible. Any BitTorrent client cannot recognize a torrent file without FormatTorrent files come in different types, sizes, and quality. You must know the estimates of the file size before downloading. There is no need to download a torrent file that is beyond the size it intends to be. More often than not, this could contain unnecessary tools that can harm your computer. The next thing that you need to check is the information about the file itself. More often than not, files get compressed in a format. You can easily unzip these types of files through Description and CommentsLastly, the file description and the comments beneath it can tell you more about its quality. When choosing between a plethora of torrent files, opt for the one with a skull icon beside it. This icon is an indication that VIP users upload the file within the platform. The file description can indicate disclaimers or measures that you need to take, so make sure to have a peek. Additionally, the comments contain valuable insight into the quality of the file and any issues with Pirate Bay Remains Operational Throughout the YearsWith the tremendous advancements in technology and the internet, one thing stands strong: Pirate Bay. It is still accessible despite its constant problems with the authorities all over the world. Millions of users find ways to circumvent ISP blockades to download their favorite shows, movies, photos, games, and are currently over 20 countries that restrict access with the notorious peer-to-peer sharing platform. Among many others, it includes Australia, China, Belgium, France, German, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, the US, and the UK. On the contrary, there are still a few locations where Pirate Bay browsing is permitted. Some of these destinations worth mentioning are Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Belarus, and Hong though the police shut down other torrent websites to exist after countless lawsuits and an oversaturated market, Pirate Bay received similar punches and stood strong. The pirate ship continues to sail over the seas of legal scrutiny, country-wide restrictions, and hefty won’t probably overcome these obstacles without the millions of users behind their backs. Pirate Bay depends on donations and paid advertisements through cash and digital currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Monero to survive. At the same time, they utilize the funding to keep the website functional and operational throughout the plenty of ways to bypass the restrictions, millions of users are relieved that they can still browse through Pirate Bay freely. However, there is still uncertainty about how its legal issues will turn out in the coming years. Learning All There is To Know About the Pirate Bay WebsiteThe Pirate Bay website is one that feels like it has been around for centuries, yet it’s still a mystery. The Pirate Bay site is a torrent site that lets people stream movies and tv shows, play games, and read books and other reading material for free. People head to Pirate Bay to watch movies that are currently in theaters, or download books for their classes. The site has a variety of products for ’s really interesting about Pirate Bay is that it has existed since 2003. Its creators, Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrick Neij, and Peter Sunde poured their time and energy into the Swedish torrent site. They also went to jail for varying times because of their involvement in copy infringement. Regardless, the site has still managed to wadays, it’s much easier to use Pirate Bay because it has magnet links instead of torrents. This basically means that people can download straight from the site, instead of installing a torrent conversion website is one that has posed a threat in many countries. In fact, 20 different countries have banned the torrent site. They do not wish to get their citizens in trouble, nor do they want their content being stolen. Many people have trouble to stop Pirate Bay. Thirteen years later, however, it’s still one of the most popular sites for free content streaming. That likely won’t change for a long, long wnloading Torrents From Pirate Bay; How to Do ItPirate Bay is a Sweden-based torrent site that has been sharing media for over 10 years. People use Pirate to watch movies, tv shows, and more. Understanding how to use its torrents will help you get the best from your content. Get a VPN Depending on the country you live in, you may need a VPN to even access the website. Download a VPN and change it to a country where The Pirate Bay is allowed. Search for the Torrent File You Need Head to the Pirate Bay site to find the torrent you are looking for. The website will give you options for audio, video, games, books, and more. Click the option you want and type in the title. Then click the file you want and look for how many seeders and leechers it has. You should use a product that has more seeders than leechers. Check for comments on the product, page, too to make sure the file is good. Download the File with a Torrent Client Click the download link in the page or drag it to your torrent client. If your computer needs an extension to download the media, it will suggest that you do this. Otherwise, you can use any of the torrents on The Pirate Bay in a Torrent Client. This is essentially an application that converts torrents into viewable links. Enjoy Your File There isn’t much that goes into downloading torrents. Once you’ve got your file, you can enjoy your content. It’s that is Torrenting? When you normally download something off of the Internet, perhaps a PDF or music file, you would naturally click a button labeled “download” and the file comes neatly onto your computer, immediately available for use. However, torrenting works differently. A normal download takes a file from a single server and downloads it as a whole, whereas a torrent, also known as a tracker, will break up the big file and cut it down into little pieces called “packets”. The torrent file you downloaded keeps track of who has which packet and alternates where you’re downloading this may all seem quite interesting to someone technologically minded, the fact that torrenting allow users to share free files, files that would normally cost money, creates a legal implication for both users and downloaders. Although torrenting may seem appealing, it does come with a catch. And therefore, is no surprise that torrenting is often associated with piracy because it is frequently used to share files that are protected by copyright, such as movies, computer games, music, software, books, Legal is Torrenting on Pirate Bay? The question of illegality arises in a gray area that acknowledges that torrenting can be sometimes used lessening the load on centralized servers by distributing the hosting burden among users. However, it is widely acknowledged that torrenting is also used in piracy, notably on a website aptly called Pirate Pirate Bay is an online resource that was founded in 2003 of a vast variety of digital content of media, entertainment, and software. The website allows users to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, that facilitate peer to peer file sharing, as detailed above. In other words, the website is a well-known tool for internet users to find music, games, movies, and television shows to download…for, this question has plagued website owners and download users since the turn of the century as commonplace internet users and hackers have maneuvered the gray area of legality in torrenting and copyright protections. Pirate Bay, itself, has been shut down many times in the past due to arguments regarding civil liberties, copyright laws, and a variety of other legal issues. With every shutdown, the website has found itself back on its feet again with new web addresses and has continued erefore, it is important to note that torrenting, itself, is not illegal. However, downloading unsanctioned copyrighted material is. The risk of torrenting is found in the fact that it is not always obvious which content is legal to torrent and which is not. Depending on what downloads an internet user is acquiring, they might find themselves on the wrong side of the You be Sued for Downloading Noncopyrighted Materials? When an author or artist of work copyrights their music, words, or art, they are in effect being granted a right by a state to have exclusive control over their work for a limited amount of time in exchange of the ability to be able to have public disclosure of their work. Copyright infringement occurs when an author’s rights are violated because their work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed or made into a derivative work without their consent. When you download a copy of a copyrighted work without the permission of the owner, you are essentially reproducing that work and engaging in copyright question then arises whether or not a website visitor can be sued for also downloaded noncopyrighted materials and files that seemingly are not protected and therefore should be legal. Generally, the answer is that an author of material that is not protected cannot sue someone who downloads their material over the web. It is normal to feel unsure of whether the information you are viewing or downloading is copyright protected or not, and therefore whether it is authorized for a free download. Therefore, it will be beneficial to check and see if the artist or creator has a website or a statement about their works anywhere on the Internet that explains any protections they may be It Legal to Hide Your IP Address when Torrenting? Many online users have figured out that there are ways in which you can keep your torrenting activity safe and private by torrenting with a virtual private network (VPN). Torrenting without a VPN will allow your internet service provider the ability to see your online activity including the sites you visit, the documents you download, and the content you see. In the United States, internet service providers are allowed to share this information with third parties, which can also include the intellectual property owners themselves. This ability to share information can be damning to an internet user who wants to download torrents without understanding which files legal and which files are ankfully, a VPN will keep your online activity private from your internet service provider and will lower your risk of security threats that frequently arise with torrenting, or any potential legal liabilities that can be discovered by third parties. With a VPN, you can secure your internet connection and hide your identity online when viewing or downloading ever, although using a VPN is legal, using a VPN in order to commit illegal acts such as downloading copyrighted material is still illegal, with a VPN or without one. Therefore, although a VPN can protect you from third parties viewing your downloads, you are still restricted to torrenting only material that is not copyright protected and doing so at your own Pirate Bay was FormedThe Pirate Bay was set up by members of what was once a Swedish Think Tank and data sharing site: Piratbyran (the Piracy Bureau). The three creators, Gottfried Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, were not destined to create the world’s most used torrent streaming site. They started the website on a whim. It has no sense of structure or organization. They truly started with nothing and made it into something incredible, and life-changing for a lot of people. They were able to transform a simple, new websites in 2003 to a website that received nearly 2. 5 million users by 2005. The website of Pirate Bay received so much attention based on a few co-workers who had an idea and went with it. It also quickly become on of the most sought after websites by people police officers, especially in its home country of Sweden. At one point, police even raided the headquarters of the Pirate Bay, which shut down the site for a couple of days. What’s truly fascinating about this is that the attention brought on by the police raid brought more traction to the website. The raid made the news, alerting people who had never heard of the Pirate Bay to their new, favorite website. The popularity of the Pirate Bay really only took a few years. It become so well acclaimed, and one of the best torrent sites, and sites for streaming tv and movies, as well as download books and games. The world can thank the think a regulary Swedish Think Tank for introducing brilliant minds to one another. Those brilliant minds invented the Pirate Bay, which is still around for those who can access it Can Download Most AnythingTV, books, and movies, oh my! The Pirate Bay Users can get up to date content of a variety of things. The Pirate Bay is most famous for releasing movies and TV shows that haven’t yet hit the big screen (or are still in theaters), but that’s not all they have. The Pirate Bay has torrents for all sorts of things. Book lovers can find all their favorite thrillers, biographies, and fantasy books on the Pirate Bay website. The same is true for gamers. People can download many games from the Pirate Bay interface that they would have to pay for elsewhere. Are you a student struggling paying for books and equipment? The Pirate Bay has you covered. They have textbooks, as well as access to microsoft office. Honestly, if it’s something you have to buy, odds are the Pirate Bay already has it. That being said, the site was much more popular and much safer to use when it was initially created. Now, many countries block the site and warn users against downloading any torrent off the Pirate Bay. Whether or not the new Call of Duty is worth a major fine or the risk of jail time is up to the user. Nonetheless, it’s important to note that the Pirate Bay is truly a site for the people. There is content for everyone. Those who don’t feel like subscribing to Sportify can even downloaded music off of the Pirate Bay. That being said, most people don’t have the want or desire to get things off of the Pirate Bay anymore. They have subscriptions to Hulu, Netflix, HBO, Apple Music, and more. Most things that people could access on the Pirate Bay are pretty cheap elsewhere nowadays. It is particularly greater, however, for those who need different kinds of software, or who cannot wait a moment longer (or waste money renting it) to watch that new moving they’ve been dying to it WorksThe whole concept of uploading, downloading, torrents, etc. is sort of confusing. People use the Pirate Bay, but they don’t really understand how it works. First of all, Pirate Bay uses torrents. Torrents are, in the simplest term possible, files that hold data. This data is basically whatever people want it to be. It can be data to project a movie or tv show, or data to upload a software to a computer. To download torrents, people need bittorrent clients that will let me process those files. Some of these clients are BitTorrent, qBittorent, and Vuze. Clients are basically apps that can be added to your computer, and some can be added to your phone. When you use a site like the Pirate Bay to download torrents, they’ll be downloaded to the client. When they’re finished, they can be saved on the computer for future viewing or use. The way to watch it is just as simple as clicking “download” and letting the file pop up on your computer. People use torrents to upload these files because they don’t need a large server to do so. They can split it up in torrents, and let the client put the pieces back together. Torrents make it possible for anyone to upload movies, games, music, etc. online. That’s why the Pirate Bay is so popular. People from all over the world share what they have. So if a movie is released in a different country a few months before the USA, someone from that country can upload it. Now, uploading torrents isn’t technically illegal, but copyrighting is. Those who share torrents on the Pirate Bay face legal Legality of the Pirate BayPeople love getting free stuff. It’s true, and when that free stuff is easily accessible on the internet, it makes them even happier. After all, why waste $5-10 on a movie rental when you’re only going to watch it once? That’s why people have flocked to the Pirate Bay since it’s launch in 2003. The site has been consistent, it has carried most anything a person could want on the internet, and the legal consequences have not been too severe. As the site became more popular, of course, that all changed. People who use the Pirate Bay now may notice a warning when they go to download a torrent. Seeing the torrent isn’t illegal, but as soon as you press the “download” button you now possess pirated content. For those who just want one game or movie, they don’t face much threat. It is those who use the site frequently and the content on it who may have to do jail time. There are ways to avoid these consequences, perhaps by downloading it on a free wifi network or using a usb to take the file on the computer, and delete any trace of it. People come up with ways to clear themselves of suspicion, but if they’re caught, it could lead them to 5 to 10 years in prison. Of course, the creators of the Pirate Bay didn’t even serve that much jail time, so it’s highly unlikely someone who wanted to watch the new Avengers would have to. Nonetheless, the ownership of pirated material is illegal, which is something everyone using the Pirate Bay network should know and understand before they condemn Founders of Pirate Bay and their Jail TimeWhat’s truly interesting about the Pirate Bay is that, though so many people and countries have to shut it down, it’s still thriving. People have done everything to stop the Pirate Bay. They’ve made it inaccessible in certain countries, they’ve issued warnings to people who try to use it, they’ve disable the site name, but nothing has sticked. One thing you would expect that would discourage the founders of the Pirate Bay is sending them to jail. Four men were sentenced to up to one year in jail in 2009. Those men were Gottfird Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrick Neij and Carl Lundstrom. They were also made to pay a 46 million kroner fine. They were sentenced to jail on the basis of copyrighting. There were about 30 or so cases related to copyright infrigements listed on their charges, which is clearly only a few compared to all the content on the Pirate Bay. After all of this occurred, you would expect that the Pirate Bay website would have been discontinued, but it wasn’t. The founders were later go on to do more jail time, but they site never came down. In 2020, it’s not nearly as popular as it used to be, but it’s alive and well. The men who created the Pirate Bay are proud of what they accomplished, and one creator, Fredrick Neij, said “it was well worth doing prison time. ” The founders aren’t really associaed with the Pirate Bay anymore, but their legacy lives on with it. In 2011, two of the Pirate Bay’s original three founders– Gottfried Svartholm and Fredrick Neij–created a new file sharing site, the Bay is the TPB blocked in many countries? The Pirate Bay needs no introduction. Since its launch in 2003, TPB has been the most popular source of digital material, including video games, movies, software, and music on the internet. Its continued popularity stems from the fact that it saves users substantial expenses that could have otherwise gone towards purchases and subscriptions. On the other hand, the use of TPB is considered illegal in various countries, and the site is constantly blocked as a result. Previously open countries like Greece and Romania have also instituted restrictions that have rendered it difficult to access the site. The issue of blocking Pirate Bay and the institution strict restrictions has resulted in a massive controversy, with many citing that the move infringes on people’s freedom to act at their own discretion. Torrenting sites are not entirely illegal. The content hosted on these sites is uploaded by the users and not the website’s administrators. Hence, it would be an extraordinarily monumental and expensive task to confirm whether every upload contains copyrighted content. For this reason, attempts to restrict or ban Pirate Bay will continue to receive a lot of backlash. This has left users wondering whether or not Pirate Bay is a legal site or not. Essentially, The Pirate Bay is merely a website, and thus it is not illegal. Users can open the browser and view what is on the site without any legal repercussions. So why have many countries instructed their Internet Service Providers to block TPB? One of the main reasons why countries have blocked this website is because it infringes on copyright laws. Virtually all nations prohibit the downloading and sharing of copyright material without permission. And there is a good reason for this. While users save a lot from downloading these materials for free, copyright infringement and piracy leads to substantial monetary losses for the actual owners of the content. Consequently, tens of thousands of people are deprived of their hard-earned wages. Torrenting facilitates piracy and copyright infringement, and thus countries block torrenting sites to discourage these activities. In fact, in recent years, there has been a global trend towards stricter enforcement of copyright laws. Pirate Bay itself has been subject to several copyright violation lawsuits over the years. However, this usually results in the site obtaining more traffic as people are inherently attracted to controversy, indicating that censoring of torrenting sites has the potential to do more harm than good. Aside from enabling the sharing of copyrighted information, torrenting exposes a user’s IP address to a lot of people. This can be dangerous for so many reasons. Essentially, torrent users can easily become victims of cybercrimes as hackers masked as leechers or seeders can harvest their IP addresses with ease. All they need to do is check the list of peers, and they can view their complete address as well as the type and version of torrent client they are using. Hence, for some countries blocking torrenting websites like the Pirate Bay seems like the only logical step to protect their citizens from Safe Is It? Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the use of The Pirate Bay after considering the issues highlighted above, is how safe it is. Undoubtedly, there are some dangers associated with using TPB. As seen, torrenting exposes your IP address to potential hackers and other malicious third parties in your network. This may allow them to scan the IP address for open ports that they can use to infiltrate your home network. With an IP address, hackers can quickly determine your location, which for obvious reasons, is not safe. Also, they could collect users’ IP addresses and sell them on the dark web for profit. Hackers are not the only ones who have something to gain from stealing your IP address. Content providers, too, can use your IP address to spam you with “personalized” ads, which can feel like an invasion of privacy. Another risk of using Pirate Bay is that one might find themselves in a legal mess given that ISPs frown upon torrenting, especially in countries where The Pirate Bay has been banned or is restricted. If found in violation of torrenting restrictions, ISPs could respond by slowing down your internet connection, sending you a warning letter, or taking legal steps. Additionally, torrents are harbors for malware, which can harm your computer and make it unreliable. According to one study, popular shows such as Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Westworld are the most popular targets for malware. However, you can overcome these issues by learning how to torrent correctly and adopting the best torrenting key to torrenting safely is using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs work by re-routing your traffic through an intermediary server, which protects users in two major ways. First, since VPNs encrypt your internet connection, ISP, and other third parties cannot see what you are accessing or downloading. In turn, this allows you to protect yourself from the legal repercussions of violating torrenting restrictions. Besides, it is not strange for copyright holders to observe Pirate Bay for their own content and collect the IP addresses of anyone using it. Therefore, your priority should always be protecting yourself from facing a legal battle. Secondly, routing torrents through a middleman server hides your device’s IP address, thereby preventing hackers from collecting your information and using it for malicious purposes. There are several VPN services you can choose from. But you need to note that not all of them are suitable for safe torrenting. The main criteria you should consider when selecting a VPN is whether it offers leak protection, military-grade encryption, and a kill switch that disrupts the transmission of data when the connection to the VPN server drops. Another aspect you should consider is the speed of the VPN to save time on torrenting. One possible option is NordVPN. This VPN is excellent as it is both fast but still maintains your to Find Pirate Bay? Looking to start downloading torrents? Do you have a pesky song stuck in your noggin that you just need to hear and move on from? Then you probably want to get to Pirate Bay and start the downloading process. A couple of things to bear in mind is that some jurisdictions block access to the system and that the system is not invulnerable (it can go down from time to time). If you are on the hunt, there are a few steps to follow to make sure you accounted for easiest and most straightforward mode of attack is to just type the URL into your browser. Go to explorer and enter Once you click enter, does the screen restrict you from access with an error code? If so, the first thing you should do is to go to your alternate browser. Try the URL on edge and chrome before moving on to different options. Technology can be fickle, and this lets you cover all bases before moving on. Another good way to start is doing a quick google search for Pirate Bay. Does the resulting prompt for you? The chances are that, if you are in an amenable jurisdiction, it will be on the very first page of your search. If not, then look into your local legislation. Does your country take copyright infringement really seriously and block sites like Pirate Bay? It is likely that you will need to follow some extra steps to find the site and get your desired first measure you need to take is to run your system through the masking features of a virtual private network (VPN). This effectively hides your real location from the servers by bouncing off of a bunch of other locations. Since it spoofs your placement on the system, it can often circumvent the geographical restrictions to the site. While there are some free VPNs out there, it is usually wiser to pay for a service. Generally, you can get one for as low as $3 per month. Once this is running, search for the Pirate Bay all else fails, go on the hunt for helpful mirroring sites. These basically imitate the Pirate Bay and aren’t as prone to shutdowns from oversight. The chances are that, if you followed all of the above steps, you are downloading torrents as we the Pirate Bay Hide Your Identity? There are basic things everyone should acknowledge before using The Pirate Bay. One of those things is that the website does not hide your identity. It is dependent on the user to come up with ways to protect their identity and ensure they stay safe on the internet. No matter how often you use The Pirate Bay, you don’t want to be caught. There are many ways people can go incognito on Pirate most obvious solution to protecting yourself on Pirate Bay is by using a VPN. A VPN is a Verified Private Network that will hide your information and your IP address, so you can surf the web freely. Though this is a great way to use the Pirate Bay Network, users should still be aware that it is not 100% Bay users should also use an I2P application to go invisible online. This will help them become as safe and secure as one, including the Pirate Bay creators, are protected by the site itself. Uploading and downloading the torrents are illegal and a form of copyright infringement. Know what you can be charged with before using The Pirate Bay and make the necessary adjustments to browse the reputation of the torrent before downloading itUsing The Pirate Bay means you take a “buyer beware” approach to the files that you decide to access. This term comes from a Latin legal expression called caveat emptor. Although the individual or organization uploads copyright-protected content to the site, your decision to obtain or stream it means that you assume the risk of having the item fail to meet legal expectations. Some companies that troll for movie streamers purposely upload things that you’re not supposed to access to track you torrent files contain defects or harmful items that could impact your computer, router, or network if you choose to download though no system is perfect, The Pirate Bay allows you to check the reputation of the torrent before downloading it. Verifying the quality of the file gives you another way to protect yourself. A three-tier, color-based rating system lets you quickly see the best options to use
The Pirate Bay – Wikipedia
The Pirate BayType of siteTorrent index, magnet links providerAvailable in35 languages available, primarily English and SwedishCreated by
Gottfrid Svartholm
Fredrik Neij
Peter Sunde
RevenueAdvertisements, donations, merchandise, cryptocurrency RegistrationOptional, freeLaunched15 September 2003; 18 years agoCurrent statusOnlineWritten inHTML, JavaScript, and PHP
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. [1] Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.
The Pirate Bay has sparked controversies and discussion about legal aspects of file sharing, copyright, and civil liberties and has become a platform for political initiatives against established intellectual property laws as well as a central figure in an anti-copyright movement. [2] The website faced several shutdowns and domain seizures, switching to a series of new web addresses to continue operating. [3]
In April 2009, the website’s founders (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm) were found guilty in the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden for assisting in copyright infringement and were sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine. [4] In some countries, Internet service providers (ISPs) have been ordered to block access to the website. Subsequently, proxy websites have been providing access to it. [5][6][7][8][9] Founders Svartholm, Neij, and Sunde were all released by 2015 after having served shortened sentences. [3]
History[edit]
The Pirate Bay was established in September 2003[10] by the Swedish anti-copyright organisation Piratbyrån (The Piracy Bureau); it has been run as a separate organisation since October 2004. The Pirate Bay was first run by Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, who are known by their nicknames “anakata” and “TiAMO”, respectively. They have both been accused of “assisting in making copyrighted content available” by the Motion Picture Association of America. On 31 May 2006, the website’s servers in Stockholm were raided and taken away by Swedish police, leading to three days of downtime. [11] The Pirate Bay claims to be a non-profit entity based in the Seychelles;[12] however, this is disputed. [13]
The Pirate Bay has been involved in a number of lawsuits, both as plaintiff and as defendant. On 17 April 2009, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström were found guilty of assistance to copyright infringement and sentenced to one year in prison and payment of a fine of 30 million SEK (approximately 4. 2m USD, 2. 8m GBP, or 3. 1m EUR), after a trial of nine days. The defendants appealed the verdict and accused the judge of giving in to political pressure. [14][15] On 26 November 2010, a Swedish appeals court upheld the verdict, decreasing the original prison terms but increasing the fine to 46 million SEK. [16] On 17 May 2010, because of an injunction against their bandwidth provider, the site was taken offline. [17] Access to the website was later restored with a message making fun of the injunction on their front page. On 23 June 2010, the group Piratbyrån disbanded due to the death of Ibi Kopimi Botani, a prominent member and co-founder of the group. [18]
The Pirate Bay was hosted for several years by PRQ, a Sweden-based company, owned by creators of TPB Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij. [19] PRQ is said to provide “highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting services to its customers”. [20] From May 2011, Serious Tubes Networks started providing network connectivity to The Pirate Bay. [21] On 23 January 2012, The Pirate Bay added the new category Physibles. These are 3D files described as “data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical” using a 3D printer. [22] In May 2012, as part of Google’s newly inaugurated “Transparency Report”, the company reported over 6, 000 formal requests to remove Pirate Bay links from the Google Search index; those requests covered over 80, 500 URLs, with the five copyright holders having the most requests consisting of: Froytal Services LLC, Bang Bros, Takedown Piracy LLC, Amateur Teen Kingdom, and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). [23] On 10 August 2013, The Pirate Bay announced the release of PirateBrowser, a free web browser used to circumvent internet censorship. [24] The site was the most visited torrent directory on the World Wide Web from 2003 until November 2014, when KickassTorrents had more visitors according to Alexa. [25] On 8 December 2014, Google removed most of the Google Play apps from its app store that have “The Pirate Bay” in the title. [26]
On 9 December 2014, The Pirate Bay was raided by the Swedish police, who seized servers, computers, and other equipment. [27][28][29][30][31] Several other torrent related sites including EZTV, Zoink, Torrage and the Istole tracker were also shut down in addition to The Pirate Bay’s forum [28] On the second day after the raid EZTV was reported to be showing “signs of life” with uploads to ExtraTorrent and KickassTorrents and supporting proxy sites like via the main website’s backend IP addresses. [32][33] Several copies of The Pirate Bay went online during the next several days, most notably, created by isoHunt. [34][35]
On 19 May 2015, the domain of The Pirate Bay was ordered to be seized following a ruling by a Swedish court. [36][37] The site reacted by adding six new domains in its place. [38][39] The judgment was appealed on 26 May 2015. [40] On 12 May 2016, the appeal was
dismissed and the Court ruled the domains be turned over to the Swedish state. [41][42] The site returned to using its original domain in May 2016. [43] In August 2016, the US government shut down KickassTorrents, which resulted in The Pirate Bay becoming once again the most visited BitTorrent website. [44]
Website[edit]
Content[edit]
The Pirate Bay homepage in 2004 (top) and the present
The Pirate Bay allows users to search for Magnet links. These are used to reference resources available for download via peer-to-peer networks which, when opened in a BitTorrent client, begin downloading the desired content. (Originally, [45] The Pirate Bay allowed users to download BitTorrent files (torrents), small files that contain metadata necessary to download the data files from other users). The torrents are organised into categories: “Audio”, “Video”, “Applications”, “Games”, “Porn” and “Other”. [46] Registration requires an email address and is free; registered users may upload their own torrents and comment on torrents. According to a study of newly uploaded files during 2013 by TorrentFreak, 44% of uploads were television shows and movies, porn was in second place with 35% of uploads, and audio made up 9% of uploads. [47]
The website features a browse function that enables users to see what is available in broad categories like Audio, Video, and Games, as well as sub-categories like Audio books, High-res Movies, and Comics. Since January 2012, it also features a “Physibles” category for 3D-printable objects. [48][49] The contents of these categories can be sorted by file name, the number of seeders or leechers, the date posted, etc.
Piratbyrån described The Pirate Bay as a long-running project of performance art. [50] Normally, the front page of The Pirate Bay featured a drawing of a pirate ship with the logo of the 1980s anti-copyright infringement campaign, “Home Taping Is Killing Music”, on its sails instead of the Jolly Roger symbol usually associated with pirate ships. [51]
Technical details[edit]
Initially, The Pirate Bay’s four Linux servers ran a custom web server called Hypercube. An old version is open-source. [52] On 1 June 2005, The Pirate Bay updated its website in an effort to reduce bandwidth usage, which was reported to be at 2 HTTP requests per millisecond on each of the four web servers, [53] as well as to create a more user friendly interface for the front-end of the website. The website now runs Ligd and PHP on its dynamic front ends, MySQL at the database back end, Sphinx on the two search systems, memcached for caching SQL queries and PHP-sessions and Varnish in front of Ligd for caching static content. As of September 2008, The Pirate Bay consisted of 31 dedicated servers including nine dynamic web fronts, a database, two search engines, and eight BitTorrent trackers. [54]
On 7 December 2007, The Pirate Bay finished the move from Hypercube to Opentracker as its BitTorrent tracking software, also enabling the use of the UDP tracker protocol for which Hypercube lacked support. [55] This allowed UDP multicast to be used to synchronise the multiple servers with each other much faster than before. [56] Opentracker is free software. [57][58]
In June 2008, The Pirate Bay announced that their servers would support SSL encryption in response to Sweden’s new wiretapping law. [59] On 19 January 2009, The Pirate Bay launched IPv6 support for their tracker system, using an IPv6-only version of Opentracker. [61] On 17 November 2009, The Pirate Bay shut off its tracker service permanently, stating that centralised trackers are no longer needed since distributed hash tables (DHT), peer exchange (PEX), and magnet links allow peers to find each other and content in a decentralised way. [62][63]
On 20 February 2012, The Pirate Bay announced in a Facebook post that after 29 February the site would no longer offer torrent files, and would instead offer only magnet links. The site commented: “Not having torrents will be a bit cheaper for us but it will also make it harder for our common enemies to stop us. “[64] The site added that torrents being shared by fewer than ten people will retain their torrent files, to ensure compatibility with older software that may not support magnet links. [65]
Funding[edit]
Early financing[edit]
In April 2007, a rumour was confirmed on the Swedish talk show Bert that The Pirate Bay had received financial support from right-wing entrepreneur Carl Lundström. This caused some consternation since Lundström, an heir to the Wasabröd fortune, is known for financing several far-right political parties and movements like Sverigedemokraterna and Bevara Sverige Svenskt (Keep Sweden Swedish). During the talk show, Piratbyrån spokesman Tobias Andersson acknowledged that “without Lundström’s support, Pirate Bay would not have been able to start” and stated that most of the money went towards acquiring servers and bandwidth. [66][67]
Donations[edit]
From 2004 until 2006, The Pirate Bay had a “Donate” link to a donations page which listed several payment methods, stated that funds supported only the tracker, and offered time-limited benefits to donors such as no advertisements and “VIP” status. [68] After that, the link was removed from the home page, [69] and the donations page only recommended donating “to your local pro-piracy group” for a time, [70] after which it redirected to the site’s main page. Billboard claimed that the site in 2009 “appeals for donations to keep its service running”. [71] In 2006, Petter Nilsson, a candidate on the Swedish political reality show Toppkandidaterna (The Top Candidates), donated 35, 000 SEK (US$4, 925. 83) to The Pirate Bay, which they used to buy new servers. [72][73]
In 2007, the site ran a fund intended to buy Sealand, a platform with debated micronation status. [74] In 2009, the convicted principals of TPB requested that users stop trying to donate money for their fines, because they refused to pay them. [75][76] In 2013, The Pirate Bay published its Bitcoin address on the site front page for donations, [77] as well as Litecoin. [78]
Merchandising[edit]
The site links to an online store selling site-related merchandise, first noted in 2006 in Svenska Dagbladet. [79][80]
Advertising[edit]
Since 2006, the website has received financing through advertisements on result pages. According to speculations by Svenska Dagbladet, the advertisements generate about 600, 000 SEK (US$84, 000) per month. [81][82] In an investigation in 2006, the police concluded that The Pirate Bay brings in 1. 2 million SEK (US$169, 000) per year from advertisements. [83] The prosecution estimated in the 2009 trial from emails and screenshots that the advertisements pay over 10 million SEK (US$1. 4M) a year, [84] but the indictment used the estimate from the police investigation. [85] The lawyers of the site’s administrators counted the 2006 revenue closer to 725, 000 SEK (US$102, 000). [86] The verdict of the first trial, however, quoted the estimate from the preliminary investigation. [87]
As of 2008, IFPI claims that the website is extremely profitable, and that The Pirate Bay is more engaged in making profit than supporting people’s rights. [88] The website has insisted that these allegations are not true, stating, “It’s not free to operate a Web Site on this scale”, and, “If we were making lots of money I, Svartholm, wouldn’t be working late at the office tonight, I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere, working on my tan. “[89] In response to claims of annual revenue exceeding US$3 million made by the IFPI, the site’s spokesman Peter Sunde argues that the website’s high bandwidth, power, and hardware costs eliminate the potential for profit. The Pirate Bay, he says, may ultimately be operating at a loss. [88] In the 2009 trial, the defence estimated the site’s yearly expenses to be 800, 000 SEK (US$110, 000). [86]
There have been unintentional advertisers. In 2007, an online ad agency placed Wal-Mart The Simpsons DVD ads “along with search results that included downloads of the series”. [90] In 2012, banner ads for Canada’s Department of Finance Economic Action Plan were placed atop search results, as part of a larger “media buy”, but were pulled “quickly”. [91][92]
Fee[edit]
According to the site’s usage policy, it reserves the right to charge commercial policy violators “a basic fee of €5, 000 plus bandwidth and other costs that may arise due to the violation”. [93] Co-founder Peter Sunde accused Swedish book publishers, who scraped the site for information about copyrighted books, of violating the usage policy, and asserted TPB’s copyright on its database. [94]
Projects[edit]
“Jubilee! ” – on the homepage 31 January 2008[95]
The team behind The Pirate Bay has worked on several websites and software projects of varying degrees of permanence.
In 2007, BayImg, an image hosting website similar to TinyPic went online in June. [96][97]
Pre-publication images posted to BayImg became part of a legal battle when Conde Nast’s network
was later allegedly hacked. [98][99]
In July, “within hours after Ingmar Bergman’s death”, was launched, listing torrents for the director’s films, [96][100][101] online until mid-2008. [102]
In August, The Pirate Bay relaunched the BitTorrent website to perform the same functions as The Pirate Bay, with different torrent trackers, but the site languished; the domain was returned to its original owner in August 2010, and it now redirects to [103][104]
was introduced in August as the official forum for and the various sites connected to it. Users can request reseeding of torrents, or report malware within torrent files or illegal material on [105][106]
BOiNK was announced in October in response to the raid on Oink’s Pink Palace, a music-oriented BitTorrent website. [107] A month later Sunde cancelled BOiNK, citing the many new music websites created since the downfall of OiNK. [108]
A Mac dashboard widget was released in December, listing “top 10 stuff currently on TPB, either per category or the full list”. [109][110] SlopsBox, a disposable email address anti-spam service, also appeared in December, [111][112] and was reviewed in 2009. [113][114]
Political cartoon criticising the entertainment industry on the main page of TPB
In 2008, Baywords was launched as a free blogging service that lets users of the site blog about anything as long as it does not break any Swedish laws. [115] In December, The Pirate Bay resurrected ShareReactor as a combined eD2k and BitTorrent site. [116] The same month, the Vio mobile video converter was released, designed to convert video files for playback on mobile devices such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, many Nokia and Windows Mobile devices. [117]
In 2009, Pastebay, a note sharing service[118] similar to Pastebin, was made available to the public as of 23 March. [119][120] The Video Bay video streaming/sharing site was announced in June to be “The YouTube Killer”, with content viewable in HTML 5-capable browsers. [121][122] The site was in an “Extreme Beta” phase; a message on the homepage instructed the user “don’t expect anything to work at all”. [123] The Video Bay was never completed and as of 28 April 2013, The Video Bay is inaccessible.
On 18 April 2011, Pirate Bay temporarily changed its name to “Research Bay”, collaborating with P2P researchers of the Lund University Cybernorms group in a large poll of P2P users. [124] The researchers published their results online on “The Survey Bay”, as a public Creative Commons project in 2013. [125][126][127] In January 2012, the site announced The Promo Bay; “doodles” by selected musicians, artists and others could be rotated onto the site’s front page at a future date. [128][129] Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho was promoted, offering a collection of his books for free download. [130] By November, 10, 000 artists were reported to have signed up. [131] TPB preserves a dated collection of exhibited logos. [132] On 2 December 2012, some ISPs in the UK such as BT, Virgin Media, and BE started blocking The Promo Bay[133] but stopped a few days later when the BPI reversed its position. [134]
Purchases[edit]
In January 2007, when the micronation of Sealand was put up for sale, the ACFI and The Pirate Bay tried to buy it. The Sealand government, however, did not want to be involved with The Pirate Bay, as it was their opinion that file sharing represented “theft of proprietary rights”. [135][136] A new plan was formed to buy an island instead, but this too was never implemented, despite the website having raised US$25, 000 (€15, 000) in donations for this cause. [137]
The P2P news blog TorrentFreak reported on 12 October 2007 that the Internet domain, which previously belonged to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an anti-piracy organisation, had been acquired by The Pirate Bay. When asked about how they got hold of the domain, Sunde told TorrentFreak, “It’s not a hack, someone just gave us the domain name. We have no idea how they got it, but it’s ours and we’re keeping it. ” The website was renamed “The International Federation of Pirates Interests”[138] However, the IFPI filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization shortly thereafter, which subsequently ordered The Pirate Bay to return the domain name to the IFPI. [139]
Cryptocurrency[edit]
On 12th May 2021 The Pirate Bay launched Pirate Token, a BEP-20 token,
to be used to sustain its community and develop tools for the website.
[140]
[141]
Incidents[edit]
May 2006 raid[edit]
On 31 May 2006, a raid against The Pirate Bay and people involved with the website took place as ordered by judge Tomas Norström, later the presiding judge of the 2009 trial, prompted by allegations of copyright violations. Police officers shut down the website and confiscated its servers, as well as all other servers hosted by The Pirate Bay’s Internet service provider, PRQ. The company is owned by two operators of The Pirate Bay. Three people – Gottfrid Svartholm, Mikael Viborg, and Fredrik Neij – were held by the police for questioning, but were released later that evening. [142] All servers in the room were seized, including those running the website of Piratbyrån, an independent organisation fighting for file sharing rights, as well as servers unrelated to The Pirate Bay or other file sharing activities. Equipment such as hardware routers, switches, blank CDs, and fax machines were also seized. [143]
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) wrote in a press release: “Since filing a criminal complaint in Sweden in November 2004, the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U. S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal website down. ” MPAA CEO Dan Glickman also stated, “Intellectual property theft is a problem for film industries all over the world and we are glad that the local government in Sweden has helped stop The Pirate Bay from continuing to enable rampant copyright theft on the Internet. ” The MPAA press release set forth its justification for the raid and claimed that there were three arrests; however, the individuals were not actually arrested, only held for questioning. The release also reprinted John G. Malcolm’s allegation that The Pirate Bay was making money from the distribution of copyrighted material, a criticism denied by the Pirate Bay. [144]
After the raid, The Pirate Bay displayed a message that confirmed that the Swedish police had executed search warrants for breach of copyright law or assisting such a breach. The closure message initially caused some confusion because on 1 April 2005, April Fools’ Day, The Pirate Bay had posted a similar message as a prank, stating that they were unavailable due to a raid by the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau and IFPI. Piratbyrån set up a temporary news blog to inform the public about the incident. [145] On 2 June 2006, The Pirate Bay was available once again, with their logo depicting a pirate ship firing cannonballs at the Hollywood Sign. [146]The Pirate Bay has servers in both Belgium and Russia for future use in case of another raid. [147] According to The Pirate Bay, in the two years following the raid, it grew from 1 million to 2. 7 million registered users and from 2. 5 million to 12 million peers. [11] The Pirate Bay now claims over 5 million active users. [148]
Sweden’s largest technology museum, the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology, acquired one of the confiscated servers in 2009 and exhibited it for having great symbolic value as a “big problem or a big opportunity”. [149]
Autopsy photos[edit]
In September 2008, the Swedish media reported that the public preliminary investigation protocols concerning a child murder case known as the Arboga case had been made available through a torrent on The Pirate Bay. In Sweden, preliminary investigations become publicly available the moment a lawsuit is filed and can be ordered from the court by any individual. The document included pictures from the autopsy of the two murdered children, which caused their father Nicklas Jangestig to urge the website to have the pictures removed. [150] The Pirate Bay refused to remove the torrent. The number of downloads increased to about 50, 000 a few days later. [151] On 11 September 2008, the website’s press contact Peter Sunde participated in the debate program Debatt on the public broadcaster SVT. Sunde had agreed to participate on the condition that the father Nicklas Jangestig would not take part in the debate. Jangestig ultimately did participate in the program by telephone, which made Sunde feel betrayed by SVT. [152] This caused The Pirate Bay to suspend all of its press contacts the following day. [153]
“I don’t think it’s our job to judge if something is ethical or unethical or what other people want to put out on the internet”, said The Pirate Bay’s spokesperson Peter Sunde to TV4. [154]
Legal issues[edit]
In September 2007, a large number of internal emails were leaked from anti-piracy company MediaDefender by an anonymous hacker. Some of the leaked emails discussed hiring hackers to perform DDoS attacks on The Pirate Bay’s servers and trackers. [155] In response to the leak, The Pirate Bay filed charges in Sweden against MediaDefender clients Twentieth Century Fox Sweden AB, EMI Sweden AB, Universal Music Group Sweden AB, Universal Pictures Nordic AB, Paramount Home Entertainment (Sweden) AB, Atari Nordic AB, Activision Nordic, Ubisoft Sweden AB, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Sweden) AB, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic AB, [156] but the charges were not pursued. [155] MediaDefender’s stocks fell sharply after this incident, and several media companies withdrew from the service after the company announced the leak had caused $825, 000 in losses. [157]
Later, The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde accused police investigator Jim Keyzer of a conflict of interest when he declined to investigate MediaDefender. Keyzer later accepted a job for MPAA member studio Warner Brothers. [158] The leaked emails revealed that other MPAA member studios hired MediaDefender to pollute The Pirate Bay’s torrent database. [159] In an official letter to the Swedish Minister of Justice, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) requested assistance from the Swedish government to prevent The Pirate bay distributing video clips from the Beijing Olympics. The IOC claimed there were more than one million downloads of footage from the Olympics – mostly of the opening ceremony. The Pirate Bay, however, did not take anything down, and temporarily renamed the website to The Beijing Bay. [160]
Protestors showing support for The Pirate Bay on the first day of the trial
The trial against the men behind the Pirate Bay started in Sweden on 16 February 2009. They were accused of breaking Swedish copyright law. [161]
The defendants, however, continued to be confident about the outcome. [162] Half the charges against the Pirate Bay were dropped on the second day of the trial. [163]
The three operators of the site and their one investor Carl Lundström were convicted in Stockholm district court on 17 April 2009 and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of 30 million SEK (US$3. 6 million, 2. 7 million EUR, 2. 4 million GBP) in fines and damages. [164] The defendants’ lawyers appealed to the Svea Court of Appeal and requested a retrial in the district court, alleging bias on the part of judge Tomas Norström. [165]
On 13 May 2009, several record companies again sued Neij, Svartholm, Sunde and also The Pirate Bay’s main internet service provider Black Internet. They required enforcement for ending The Pirate Bay’s accessory to copyright infringement that had not stopped despite the court order in April, and in the complaint listed several pages of works being shared with the help of the site. The suit was joined by several major film companies on 30 July. [166][167] The Stockholm district court ruled on 21 August that Black Internet must stop making available the specific works mentioned in the judgment, or face a 500, 000 SEK fine. [168] The company was notified of the order on 24 August, and they complied with it on the same day by disconnecting The Pirate Bay. [169] Computer Sweden noted that the judgment did not order The Pirate Bay to be disconnected, but the ISP had no other option for stopping the activity on the site. [170] It was the first time in Sweden for an ISP to be forced to stop providing access for a website. [171][172][173] A public support fund fronted by the CEO of the ISP was set up to cover the legal fees of an appeal. [174] Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge submitted the case for Parliamentary Ombudsman review, criticising the court’s order to make intermediaries responsible for relayed content and to assign active crime prevention tasks to a private party. [175][176]
On 28 October 2009, the Stockholm District Court ordered a temporary injunction on Neij and Svartholm with a penalty of 500, 000 SEK each, forbidding them from participating in the operation of The Pirate Bay’s website or trackers. [177][178]
On 21 May 2010, the Svea Court of Appeal decided not to change the orders on Black Internet or Neij and Svartholm. [179][180]
On 1 February 2012, the Supreme Court of Sweden refused to hear an appeal in the conviction case, and agreed with the decision of the Svea Court of Appeal, which had upheld the sentences in November 2011. [181]
On 2 September 2012, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was arrested in Cambodia. He was detained in Phnom Penh by officers executing an international warrant issued against him in April after he did not turn up to serve a one-year jail sentence for copyright violations. [182] On 24 December 2012, administrators of TPB changed the homepage to urge users to send Warg, in jail, “gifts and letters”. [183]
In March 2013, The Pirate Bay claimed in a blog post that it had moved its servers to North Korea. The incident turned out to be a hoax. [127] In April 2013, within a week The Pirate Bay had moved its servers from Greenland to Iceland to St. Martin, either in response to legal threats or preemptively. [184] In December 2013, the site changed its domain to (Ascension Island), following the seizure of the domain. [185] On 12 December, the site moved to (Peru), [186] on 18 December to (Guyana). [187] Following the site’s suspension from the domain, on 19 December The Pirate Bay returned to (Sweden), which it had previously occupied between February 2012 and April 2013. [188]
Trial[edit]
The Pirate Bay trial was a joint criminal and civil prosecution in Sweden of four individuals charged for promoting the copyright infringement of others with The Pirate Bay site. [189] The criminal charges were supported by a consortium of intellectual rights holders led by IFPI, who filed individual civil compensation claims against the owners of The Pirate Bay. [191]
Swedish prosecutors filed charges on 31 January 2008 against Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Peter Sunde; and Carl Lundström, a Swedish businessman who through his businesses sold services to the site. The prosecutor claimed the four worked together to administer, host, and develop the site and thereby facilitated other people’s breach of copyright law. Some 34 cases of copyright infringements were originally listed, of which 21 were related to music files, 9 to movies, and 4 to games. One case involving music files was later dropped by the copyright holder who made the file available again on The Pirate Bay site. In addition, claims for damages of 117 million kronor (US$13 million, €12. 5 million) were filed. [192] The case was decided jointly by a judge and three appointed lay judges. [193][194] According to Swedish media, the lead judge was involved in one pro-copyright organisation, and on the board of another, but denied that his involvement constituted a conflict of interest. [195]
The trial started on 16 February 2009, in the district court (tingsrätt) of Stockholm, Sweden. The hearings ended on 3 March 2009 and the verdict was announced at 11:00 am on Friday 17 April 2009: Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were all found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine of 30 million Swedish krona (app. €2. 7 million or US$3. 5 million). All of the defendants appealed the verdict.
The appeal trial concluded on 15 October 2010, [196] and the verdict was announced on 26 November. The appeal court shortened sentences of three of the defendants who appeared in court that day. Neij’s sentence was reduced to 10 months, Sunde’s to eight, and Lundström’s to four. However, the fine was increased from 32 to 46 million kronor. [197]
On 1 February 2012, the Supreme Court of Sweden refused to hear an appeal in the case, prompting the site to change its official domain name to from The move to a domain was claimed to prevent susceptibility to US laws from taking control of the site. [198] On 9 April 2013, the site changed its domain name to, under the Greenland TLD, in anticipation of possible seizure by Swedish authorities of its domain. [199] The change proved to be short lived, as the site returned to the domain on 12 April 2013 after being blocked on the domain by Tele-Post, which administers domains in Greenland. Tele-Post cited a Danish court ruling that the site was in violation of copyright laws. [200]
Founders Svartholm, Neij, and Sunde were all released after having finished serving their sentences by 2015. [3]
Service issues[edit]
In May 2007, The Pirate Bay was attacked by a group of hackers. [201] They copied the user database, which included over 1. 5 million users. The Pirate Bay claimed to its users that the data was of no value and that passwords and e-mails were encrypted and hashed. Some blogs stated that a group known as the AUH (Arga Unga Hackare, Swedish for “Angry Young Hackers”) were suspected of executing th