ReadWriteWeb

So Long, and Thanks for All the Loot: The Pirate Bay Goes Offline (For Now)

Written by Frederic Lardinois / August 24, 2009 10:21 AM / 7 Comments

pirate_bay_logo_aug09.pngBlack Internet, the Pirate Bay's largest bandwidth supplier, just shut down the notorious BitTorrent tracker after a court ordered it to pay a fine of 500,000 kroner ($70,800). Since about 9:30am PT, the site has been inaccessible. Just a few months ago, the Pirate Bay announced that it had been acquired by Global Gaming Factory (GGF). This sale, however, started to fall apart over the last few days. Unless the Pirate Bay can find another ISP, it will remain inaccessible until the outcome of a civil suit against the company can be resolved.

Update (2pm PT): some users report that the site is back up, though we still aren't able to connect.

This being the Pirate Bay, however, we don't really expect the site to be down for too long. Chances are that the group will simply relocate to another ISP (the service is already somewhat decentralized) or move its operations to an offshore location. Just a few weeks ago, somebody actually created an archive of the Pirate Bay as a torrent file. With this, a third party could possibly recreate the Pirate Bay.

The sale of the Pirate Bay to GGF, however, will remain uncertain, even if the site comes back online. Currently, Swedish stock market regulators are looking into this deal to determine if GGF actually has enough money to complete the deal or if the announcement was just a scam to boost GGF's stock price.


Comments

Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts

  1. Now, shouldn't the users of Pirate Bay put in their efforts to help it, by, maybe paying that fine ;-)
    Even 50 cents from all the users of Pirate Bay should get it back into shape.

    Posted by: Hathibelagal | August 24, 2009 12:21 PM



  2. fack u

    Posted by: kelvin | August 24, 2009 12:24 PM



  3. Bye Bye Pirate bay, hello Mininova! http://www.mininova.org/

     Posted by: Martijn Wismeijer Author Profile Page | August 24, 2009 12:58 PM



  4. The site is back up :P

    Posted by: dirtyrobot.myopenid.com Author Profile Page | August 24, 2009 1:58 PM



  5. I'm waiting for the Pirate to reopen.

    Posted by: Robin | August 24, 2009 8:58 PM



  6. Site is up and accessible now.

    Posted by: Kamal | August 25, 2009 7:04 AM



  7. When one goes down another one will come up in its place.

    Posted by: Pauly | August 25, 2009 10:02 AM



Leave a comment

Optional: Sign in with Connect Facebook   Sign in with Twitter Twitter   Sign in with OpenID OpenID  |  

If you think Twitter is big, check out the Real-Time Web
RWW SPONSORS



FOLLOW @RWW ON TWITTER

ReadWriteWeb on Facebook
ReadWriteCloud - Sponsored by VMware and Intel



TEXT LINK ADS



RWW PARTNERS