ThePirateBay.org Raided - Servers Seized

[McStabhappy]

In their native Sweden, ThePirateBay.org enjoyed a level of immunity from copyright prosecution rarely seen in the file-sharing world. Often defiant in the face of those wishing to enforce their intellectual property rights, ThePirateBay.org would go on to become one of the premier BitTorrent indexing and tracking sites.

As one of the largest trackers, ThePirateBay.org largely replaced the search engine SuprNova.org. SuprNova.org met its demise in late 2004, when it was under pressure from the entertainment industry to shut it operation down. Conversely, such pressure has been ineffective against ThePiratebay.org.

When such political pressure fails, the use of force is typically the next course of action. In a move that many thought would never come, Slyck.com learned this morning that ThePirateBay.org was raided by Swedish police.

“…The police right now is taking all of our servers, to check if there is a crime there or not (they are actually not sure),” ThePirateBay.org spokesperson “brokep” told Slyck.com.

The seizure of ThePirateBay.org’s entire server farm will guarantee this BitTorrent tracker will remain offline until the police complete their investigation. The uncertainty on the part of the police may stem from the fact ThePirateBay.org's servers only host .torrent files, not actual copyrighted material. As a tracker, ThePirateBay.org's function is to index .torrent files and to direct BitTorrent traffic and maintain the swarm (uploads and downloads.) The downloaded .torrent file contains all the necessary information to locate and download the queried file. The legality of indirectly linking to copyrighted material has yet to be tested by Swedish courts.

Whether this will keep ThePirateBay.org offline indefinitely is another matter.

“We are not sure when it will return, but we are moving it to another country if necessary,” brokep said.

According to The Pirate Party, a Swedish copyright reform organization, the raid also seized Piratbyrån's (the Pirate Bureau) servers. Piratbyrån is a educational and quasi-political organization which performs a public servic role similar to The Pirate Party. In addition, The Pirate Party reports "...the servers where located in a protected area, to which the police had no legal right to enter..." Approximately 50 police participated in the raid, which placed into custody two PirateBay.org personnel.

The premature departure of ThePirateBay.org marks a significant turning point in the BitTorrent community. Although it's not currently known what, if any, entertainment entity is behind this raid, failure to secure ThePirateBay.org's permanent removal will only bolster this tracker’s position of defiance.

:source: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203

[hiepdn]

Poor it :(

[ownage]

farewell piratebay.. remember it was a top tracker for whole-world, no sign-up, tons of stuff

[Draugr]

“We are not sure when it will return, but we are moving it to another country if necessary,” brokep said

I wouldn't count them out just yet...

[muchspl3]

ThePirageBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203

[MagicNakor]

That's unfortunate. I liked Pirate Bay. :(

Link seems to be borked for the moment.

:shuriken:

[lynx]

Exactly 12 months since the last time it was "raided". Coincidence?

[muchspl3]

orly?

link?

[raspberry1331]

worse still, that asiandvdclub is gone with as well... was wondering why doesnt it work, till i found out that they have the same provider as piratebay. or this is a coincidence, too?

[shwn]

Something reeks about this whole thing...

[Hermiod]

Some one needs to put a stop to these goverment agencies, they just seize and nothing gets to court. I still have heard nothing of the shareactor case.

[ssj4gogeta]

It's a right shame piratebay was one of the best public trackers, although I did not use it much.

[j0hn]

i doubt its dead for good
judging by the way they laugh off all threatening legal correspondance, i really dont think they care, and like the spokesperson said, will return elsewhere.
i find it amusing the swedish police "donk know if its legal or not".

[RealitY]

Has anyone noticed the coincidence of the date on this...

[lynx]

Has anyone noticed the coincidence of the date on this...Apparently not. :ermm:

[RealitY]

Last year on the same date they faked being closed down due to the supposed June issue that was to come...

[McStabhappy]

http://istheshit.net/

"due to a police raid on the server hall where the istheshit-server is located (yes, we are hosted in the same place as The Pirate Bay), the site is currently down.

UPDATE: It has been confirmed by our hosting company that the police took our server in the raid, we hope the server doesn't get molested by the police. FYI: istheshit.net isn't illegal in any way, the police removed ALL servers found in the same building as The Pirate Bay. There's some angry co-location customers right now, including us."

[fangers]

They'll be back we've seen this all before.

[deuce6000]

This is exactly the reason we should show respect to all these torrent sites and seed what we leech.They are putting there asses on the line for us and deserve donations and things like that.Just my point of view.I didnt know piratebay back in it's early days but recently has been pretty damn dead imo.

[lee551]

well it seems pretty real.

what a shame. :cry:

[santiclause85]

supernova and piratebay may the rest in peace they're in thug mansion with Pac right now

[Vivamort]

It was all over the news here in sweden with lawyers talking and stuff so i think its real
Im sure it will take a while before piratbay is up again but im sure they will be up. =D
Like they said
Filesharing can never be stopped
resistance is futile =P

[Ivanov]

The same thing happend with Bulgaria's biggest private torrent site - ArenaBG. But the site still works after police attack... More info here (http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39159183,00.htm)

[Rinaldo]

The same thing happend with Bulgaria's biggest private torrent site - ArenaBG. But the site still works after police attack... More info here (http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39159183,00.htm)


yes, the same in Bulgaria, They arested payforfree, the creator of arenabg.com but He is still free and the site is online.

Ivanov Да живее родината :D

[hlt]

If anyone missed it, thepiratebay.org was busted yesterday.

With over 1.000.000 visitors/day it's easilly one of the largest trackers out there. The site was hosted in sweden, at an isp called prq.se. When police seized the servers they took down an entire server hall, resulting in many innocent people and companies loosing their servers.

The bust is controversial at best, since most swedes agree even though TPB might be unethical there is really nothing illegal hosted on the servers according to swedish law. The initiaters behind the bust is a lobbying organization called "Antipiratbyrån" (the Anti-pirate agency) payrolled by some of the major movie and record companies.

More info: http://www.thepiratebay.org.

[justinius23]

this is pathetic. i hope tpb shows the anti-pirate agency how to fight a court case and comes back better than ever. if anyone can do it, they can.

tpb forever...

[T0TAL-RECALL]

ThePirageBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203

Obviousley didnt read the thread... Thats what this thread was about so stating the obvious is kind of stupid.

[Cheese]

ThePirageBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1203
Obviousley didnt read the thread... Thats what this thread was about so stating the obvious is kind of stupid.

No, his post was merged into this thread from a thread he started in the news section. Quite why, I'm not sure. I guess a mod got bored.

Good luck to TPB, I didn't like their site but I did enjoy their legal section.

[deuce6000]

Karagarga page said this

KG Temporarily Down

On Wednesday, May 31st 2006, the service provider hosting our server was shut down by Swedish Police during a raid aimed at taking down The Pirate Bay. Many customers, like us, totally unrelated to The Pirate Bay have been treated as collateral damage. We hope that this misapprehension can be resolved soon and that we can get our property back. Meanwhile we ask you to bear with us until we resolve that situation and keep the spirit alive by participating in the forums.

If you can't access the forums then use the following temporary fix. Copy this line:
209.59.173.162 karagarga.org
into: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Make no mistake - KG will be back. If we do not manage to retrieve our server, we will just get a new one.
Once we have more news for you, we will update this page. For some press coverage of what has been going on, check out:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/31/piratebay_raid/
http://piratbyran-in-eng.blogspot.com/
http://piratebay.org/
-------------------------

[kostuch]

I have hope so karagarga will back quickly

[j0hn]

SITE DOWN - WILL BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO
i didnt think it would be long till they returned.

[weedcup]

they'll be back.

[RealitY]

The Pirate Bay Strikes Back

Great cheers of jubilee echoed in the entertainment Halls of Justice yesterday, confident of their victory against the great Satan, ThePirateBay.org. ThePirateBay.org, as many are aware, was perhaps the largest BitTorrent tracker in history. Although it was regarded as little more than a pillar of piracy by the entertainment industry, it provided a simple avenue and interface for artists to release creative commons work to the P2P crowd.

This world came crumbling down on May 31, 2006. Seemingly immune from copyright infringement prosecution in their native Sweden, police from the National Crime Unit executed raids against the Internet Service Provider Rex|Port 80 and web host PRQ.

After the successful execution of the raids, the entertainment industry’s media machines went into full force. The MPA (Motion Picture Association) claimed Swedish Authorities had “sunk the Pirate Bay.” The IFPI (International Federation and Phonographic Industry) also clamored the raids, stating “This is a very good development for the Swedish music industry and for the real innovators and entrepreneurs who are trying to build a legal online digital business.” Antipiratbyrån, the Swedish anti-piracy bureau, also expressed its satisfaction after a long string of copyright enforcement impotence.

So now that ThePirateBay.org is offline, the celebration can go into high gear, right?

Remember we’re dealing with file-sharing, the ubiquitous hydra that simply cannot die no matter how many press releases you throw at it. If you destroy one file-sharing network, another will take its place. Remove ten BitTorrent indexing sites, 20 more will pick up the slack. ThePirateBay.org is no different, but in holding true to their nature as defiant to the entertainment industry, this BitTorrent tracker and indexer is scheduled to return within two days.

Although all tracking and indexing abilities are currently offline, ThePirateBay.org domain is still functioning. For the last 36 hours, it has been providing various updates on the raids and status of its administration. And true to their nature as being defiant in the face of the entertainment industry, ThePirateBay.org’s days are far from over.

In large, bold text, the following text is scrolled mid-screen:

“SITE DOWN - WILL BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO”

Yesterday, ThePirateBay.org spokesperson “brokep” informed Slyck.com “we are moving it to another country if necessary.” It appears ThePirateBay.org is making good on this promise. Carl Lundström, president of Rix|Port80 told Slyck.com “As I take it, they have bought new servers, installed back-ups and are already up and running tests in at least one foreign server centre.”

It seems once again the entertainment industry is about to shoot itself in the foot, unable to stop the global spread of file-sharing. Considering the speed in which ThePirateBay.org is scheduling its return, (which requires a substantial amount of logistics, organization, leadership, and not to mention equipment), it would appear they were well prepared for this event. The same cannot be said about the entertainment industry.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1204

[Cheese]

This thread seems to be doing a tour of the forum.

This has been a pretty interesting story I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of it here to be honest, I guess most of us here are using Newsgroups or private trackers. I'd like to hear from anyone who lives in Sweden and how big the story is there. Lke is it major news in the papers or on television.

[RealitY]

Aftermath of The Pirate Raids

In the morning hours of May 31, 2006, approximately 50 officers from the Swedish National Criminal Police raided the data centers for Internet Service Provider Rix|Port80 in 10 different locations. Presenting a search warrant, the officers then prompted to carry out their primary objective: seize ThePirateBay.org.

The Swedish National Criminal Police were successful in their mission. ThePirateBay.org was knocked offline, the culmination of considerable investigative efforts aided by Antipiratbyrån (Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau), the IFPI (International Federation and Phonographic Industry), and the MPA (Motion Picture Association.)

ThePirateBay.org’s seizure was a welcomed turn of events for the entertainment industry. For three years, attempts to force ThePirateBay.org to comply with international copyright standards were met with mockery, contempt, and ridicule. With ThePirateBay.org offline, the various entertainment industries that assisted expressed their satisfaction. The entertainment industry, specifically the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) claims that over 2.3 billion US dollars were lost to Internet piracy in 2005. In their estimation, including the IFPIA and Antipiratbyrån, the elimination of ThePirateBay.org went a long way in rectifying piracy losses.

“The bottom line is that the operators of the Pirate Bay and others like them are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works and files protected under the law,” said John G. Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA. “We applaud Swedish law enforcement for their effort to stop egregious copyright infringement on The Pirate Bay.”

Rix|Port80 is a hosting and connectivity supplier (Internet Service Provider) for ThePirateBay.org’s web host, PRQ. During the raid, each and every server that was hosted by PRQ was seized, despite the proper labeling of each domain. Not only did the Swedish National Police succeed in removing ThePirateBay.org, but every other domain hosted by PRQ.

The seizure of these domains, which total between 200 and 300, affected a wide range of websites. While some were smaller, personal websites, many were business oriented websites that depend on advertising for the owner’s personal livelihood. Either way, virtually all servers confiscated had absolutely nothing to do with piracy, ThePirateBay.org, or the online copyright wars.

"Our hardware was severed from the internet at approximately 12 noon Swedish time today without noticeor explanation and currently is believed to be in the possession of Stockholm Police,’ GameSwitch Director, Christopher Adams said in a press release. GameSwitch.co.uk provides hosting services for multi-player online games. With the considerable downtime, the economic impact on his site is considerable.

"GameSwitch has been given a massive blow today that could, depending on the further unfolding of events, take years to recover from, also shared by many other companies firmly based in New Technology principles in the same building. This is the kind of industry that governments should be seeking to promote and encourage rather than wipe out in the fallout what some might suggest as an unfounded display of desultory, ill-considered foreign appeasement, and we sincerely hope that those affected, ourselves included, and thus our customers, will be compensated accordingly.”

Fragbite.se, hosted by PRQ, also found itself without a home. FragBite.se is a large community of over 150,000 members which discusses the popular online game CounterStrike.

"We've been online since 2002 and have over half a million page views each day,” site administrator Tomas Hansson told Slyck.com. “We have approximately 150,000 registered users.”

"This is the longest downtime we've ever had. It's affecting us economically both short term since our immediate advertising revenues are halted, and long term since this causes us to lose visitors, which can take from several months all the way up to a year to come back from.

"I'm absolutely appalled by the way the Swedish police handled this raid. According to my info approximately 200-300 customers that have nothing to do with The Pirate Bay have been affected and their servers have been apprehended. All our servers are branded with our logo and contact information. The police simply took the "easy" way when they raided the data center and grabbed everything they could get their hands on and decided to worry about all the companies and persons they'd damage afterwards... The whole situation is absurd.”

The Swedish social community Anstalten.se is also finding times difficult since the raids. Like FragBite.se, there are both short term and long term economic consequences.

"Anstalten (Swedish for Institution) is a community with a jail-theme,” site administrator Fabian Mossberg explained to Slyck.com. “We have more than 120,000 members, most of them between 18 and 25. On Anstalten.nu you could register a profile, meet new friends and keep contacts with old friends. The community has a forum where you could discuss various topics, and the website was full of life. There was never any connection between us and ThePirateBay.”

"For us it’s critical to not be online. Every day we have between 100 and 500 new members - which we won’t have for every day we are down. Also our members need to find somewhere else to spend their time online, and we might loose members because of this. We are also depending on paying members. It’s free to be a member, but for VIP (Photo album and some other extra functions) many members pay [a few dollars per] month.

"But the biggest loss for us is advertisements/banners. Companies who have paid for one week banner need to be compensated. It’s not always possible to just give them a free week because of bookings; and campaigns have a time limit. Every hour we are offline is tough for us, but the Swedish police doesn’t give any answers. They promised to call me today if I sent them a fax, but they still haven’t called, more then 5 hours after the fax was sent.”

Humor site “istheshit.net” was additionally maligned during the raid. “Istheshit.net”, also in no way aligned with ThePirateBay, offers their visitor a way to express “that something is the shit!” The site is interactive in nature, allowing people to upload pictures and discuss the merits of a “istheshit” designation.

While the economic impact of the raids is visible, PiratByrån is also concerned about the political implications. PiratByrån is a Swedish organization designed to lobby and educate the populace on liberalizing copyright reform. The organization has acquired a degree of quantitative success, as the issues surrounding piracy, copyright reform, and file-sharing are at the forefront of Swedish politics. The organization’s name, “PiratByrån” or “The Pirate Bureau”, is a play on the Swedish copyright organization and polar opposite, “Antipiratbyrån” (Anti-Piracy Bureau.)

Like the above mentioned websites, PiratByrån’s server was also confiscated. Although PiratByrån was the founding organization of ThePirateBay.org, it has no role in the facilitation of indexing or tracking .torrent files. Its role is limited to defending and lobbying on behalf of ThePirateBay.org.

"Antipiratbyrån has obviously mislead the police in this case” said Tobias Andersson from PiratByrån. ”They seem to have told the incompetent police that the servers in question is filled with copyright protected material, this is a huge misuse of the tax payers money.”

Tobias continues, “Antipiratbyrån” has apparently tricked the police to simultaneously close down the site “PitratByrån.”

It’s interesting to note the motivation behind the raid was to secure the economic interests of the entertainment industry. Yet to this day, no clear connection has been established between downloading a copyrighted work and a dollar lost. With ThePirateBay.org preparing for its return, it appears the work of the MPA, IFPI, Antipiratbyrån and the Swedish National Criminal Police have only made the economic conditions worse. Carl Lundström, president of Rix|Port80 expresses this anomaly with Slyck.com.

“The tragic circumstance, (probably typical of illegal actions by legal authorities), is that the most damage is done to people and companies who have nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand. I am thinking of the customers of PRQ. The least damage was done to TPB. As I take it, they have bought new servers, installed back-ups and are already up and running tests in at least one foreign server centre. Perhaps their down time is shorter than any of the other PRQ customers affected.”

Antipiratbyrån, the IFPI and the Swedish National Police did not immediately respond to our request for comment at time of publication.

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1205

[Virtualbody1234]

http://thepiratebay.org/


SITE DOWN - WILL BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO

Looks like they will be back soon!

[SeK612]

Yes I think they're planning to setup a backup of the site at a new non swedish host (with the suggestion that the authorities will drag there feet whilst investigating the servers to prevent them getting back up again quickly).

I'm surprised more people here don't use the pirate bay really. In terms of public sites I've always thought it to be one of the main ones (along with torrentspy).

I think my main worry about this action would be the step up that seems to have been taken in terms of knocking out non U.S sites and the fact that TPB really is a massive site (how long until they start attempting to knock out the more private registration only sites which really would screw things up).

[peat moss]

This thread seems to be doing a tour of the forum.

This has been a pretty interesting story I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of it here to be honest, I guess most of us here are using Newsgroups or private trackers. I'd like to hear from anyone who lives in Sweden and how big the story is there. Lke is it major news in the papers or on television.


Cheese its big news in western Canada , as a young fellow in Richmond B.C. who runs ISOhunter is being sued by the RIAA which made the front page news .
Thats scary, as we Canadians always thought we were immune . :ph34r:

[gamer4eva]

I think that more and more sites are being drawn away....this aint good...especially after TiT went........that was not good. I got the feeling that there are going to be more threads regarding sites that have been seized. Dont you agree people??

[sharefile4]

I see this like a war and I think this war never ends and the PB is just another victim! No dead I hope!!! :O
sh4.

[RealitY]

Had never thought if a site reopened prior to any decisions they may not actually be doing anything wrong since nothing has been decided yet. This would be a first. Could be intended to drag it out therefore keeping them offline. Though during that time if they reopen theres nothing yet to say they arent supposed to...

[RealitY]

Has anyone noticed the coincidence of the date on this...Apparently not. :ermm:
For those that forgot...
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=811

[sear]

It seems to be back at least almost back. http://85.17.40.35/ reckons the search will be back later today. not that I use it much but that is dam quick. notice the title that comes up as well "the police bay" :lol: :lol: I like that.

[lynx]

Has anyone noticed the coincidence of the date on this...Apparently not. :ermm:
For those that forgot...
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=811

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/showpost.php?p=1355747&postcount=7 (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/showpost.php?p=1355747&postcount=7)
:rolleyes:

[GepperRankins]

they should set up in the "developing world"

[Cheese]

they should set up in the "developing world"
The thing is the US government (who seem to do the MPAA's bidding) could put even more pressure on a developing country than they can on Sweden (or any other European country).

btw has anyone noticed this is almost exactly a year after Pirate Bay faked their own closure?!?

[j0hn]

i must say all the moving around of this topic sure has made it confusing. posts constantly repeating the post before, etc.

It seems to be back at least almost back. http://85.17.40.35/ reckons the search will be back later today. not that I use it much but that is dam quick. notice the title that comes up as well "the police bay" :lol: :lol: I like that.
thats sweet.

although i rarely use public trackers like tpb, its good to see them fighting back, as we're all pretty much on the same team.

The search function will be back later today.
if thepiratebay.org isn't working for you, try:
http://85.17.40.36/search.php
or any of their other i.ps:
83.140.176.135
83.140.176.136
83.140.176.137
83.140.176.138
83.140.176.139
just some unresolved dns issues.

seems they have a new home in the netherlands now.

[lynx]

btw has anyone noticed this is almost exactly a year after Pirate Bay faked their own closure?!?O RLY? (http://www.funlol.com/pictures/o-rly-cats.html)

[hisamrain]

Poor it

[chriz20uk]

yep I think so to !!

[joeybuttawipo]

Dammit it all! Things are really heating up for file sharers!