BF2S Forums Pirate Bay goes legal

Zimmer wrote:

Zefar wrote:

I find it hilarious that they claim TPB is the largest bittorrent site. When both Mininova and ISO hunt gives you more hits on pretty much anything you look for.

Btw the companies can actually make MORE money on suing several sites than they would originally get if all of those who downloaded it bought it.

Why? Well torrent sites usually share the main torrents and most of the other torrents. They could probably get a total of 5x more than they would normally.

But it also makes you wonder, WHY TPB? And not Mininova?

/facepalm

Many of Mininovas and ISO hunts torrents COME FROM ThePirateBay. If you check the tracker, then you will see it's not from ISO hunt or Mininova.

Sheehs.

Last edited by 12/f/taiwan (2009-07-01 16:15:53)

Global Gaming Factory (GGF) paid 60m kronor (£4.7m) to take over the site.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, GGF's Hans Pandeya said that the only way to beat illegal file-sharing was to make something more attractive.

"We are going to set up a system where the file-sharer actually makes money," he said.

According to Mr Pandeya, GGF's chief executive, the business model for The Pirate Bay would be that it continued to be a file-sharing site. The only difference - at least in terms of content - would be that the files would be hosted legally, rather than stolen from copyright holders.

"We're a listed company so everything we do has to be legal; content providers need to be paid and have their wishes and demands met," he said.

Freebie beater

Mr Pandeya said that one of the biggest hurdles in overcoming illegal file-sharing was that there was zero cost to the users, while legitimate sites required users to pay for content. The only way to make something more attractive than free was to pay users to share files.

"More than half of all internet traffic is file sharing and P2P [peer-to-peer] traffic and buying Pirate Bay gives us one of the biggest sources of traffic.

"We can then use this massive network of file-sharers to help [internet service providers] reduce overload.

"Let's say a popular song comes out. Rather than a million downloads from a site - which would cause a considerable strain on that ISP - we can take that song and put it out on P2P.

"The copyright holder still gets paid, the users still get their file, the ISP doesn't have a million people all grabbing a file and - for the users who share that song - a payment for putting that file on the P2P network."

Mr Pandeya said that while they would be paying content providers and file sharers, there was money to be made from helping ISPs cope with overload.

"We've been working with ISPs for over a year and we can cut their costs - when the system becomes overloaded - by 90%.

"All ISPs have this problem and it is one we can fix," he said.

Computer grid

The company is also looking at harnessing the storage capacity and processing power of the file-sharing community, creating a powerful grid of P2P-linked computers.

"We're talking about next-gen file sharing so you can create revenue from storage and internet traffic optimisation," he said.

However, GGF said that the technology to drive this was still in its infancy.

"This technology is new. For now, we're outlining our intentions and asking users to have faith," said Mr Pandeya

Flecco wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

I have to say I've lost a bit of respect for the guys running the site, but in their position I'd probably do the exact same thing. If I ever got the opportunity to sell out for millions, I'd take it in a heartbeat.

Umm... I think their decision might have something to do with the fine they have to pay.

Flecco wrote:

It doesn't?

Wouldn't a court injunction force them to fork over the cash if they have access to it?