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The Pirate Bay Takes Over Anti-Piracy Domain

Posted by kdawson on from the heads-will-roll dept.

palpatin writes to let us know that The Pirate Bay has now taken up residence at IFPI.com, a domain once owned by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The Pirate Bay says the site will now promote the International Federation of Pirates Interests. IFPI can still be reached at ifpi.org. Torrentfreak has up a brief interview with Brokep, one of the administrators of The Pirate Bay, who says: "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."

12 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Legality? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I admire The Pirate Bay for taking advantage of Swedish law to freely host torrents, I wonder about the legality of this. How has Swedish law generally treated trademarks and domain names?

    1. Re:Legality? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

      If I got it right, they founded the "International Federation of Pirate Interests" or something like that, which has (a happy coincidence, no doubt) the letters IFPI as its acronym.

      You can have a trademark all you want, if someone has at least the same "reason" to have a domain, you have no case. Ferrero lost a case for the domain "kinder.at" (with "kinder" being their trade mark, before German legislation made trademarking common words illegal ("kinder" means "children" in German)) against (IIRC) some youth organisation. The court's decision was explained with the fact that there is no danger that the domain holder (the youth organisation) could be mistaken for Ferrero (a company making chocolate products).

      Now, if the IFPI wants to claim that they could be mistaken for a bunch of 'pirates', this could be different...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Legality? by MoonFog · · Score: 5, Informative

      Interestingly enough, this comes as a porn site was forced to give up acdc.com and give it back to the band. Here's an article

    3. Re:Legality? by monkeyboythom · · Score: 5, Funny

      If by chance, someone managed to get say, riaa.com,

      You mean, if The Pirate Bay got a hold of it?
      well, sir, they would of course have it default to the Arrrrrrr-iaa.com site.

    4. Re:Legality? by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

      Damnit, where am I meant to find my Asian Cutie Drunk Chicks now?

      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Legality? by Crayon+Kid · · Score: 5, Informative

      He wasn't without the domain for very long, but just goes to show you that things like this are hard to make bulletproof.


      "Not long"? It took Kremen 5 years to get the domain back and 10 to finally see Cohen in a US prison (for other reasons, granted) where he could no longer escape his dues.
      --
      i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
  2. So Pirates have their Interests Protected... by snipingkills · · Score: 5, Funny

    What about those of us who are ninjas? Where is our coalition for the protection of our interests?

    1. Re:So Pirates have their Interests Protected... by daeg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Only because Pirates get better recognition. I live in Tampa, which happens to have a pirate celebration every year. I get to dress up as a pirate and I'm not seen as 'weird', I'm seen as 'cool'. Try that with a Ninja costume and you'll get maced, beaten, and jailed after a cop plants drugs on you (also called 'Saturday Night' if you're from Detroit).

  3. Let's face the facts... by DanielJosphXhan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ninjas don't need to have their interests protected. They protect their own interests with a combo of martial arts and awesome.
     
    Pirates are weak sauce with their "associations". Ninjas don't have associations. Ninjas have bloodbaths.

    --
    [ think ]
  4. Re:Let me be the first to say by clickclickdrone · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is this the first time a first post/anonymous coward combo has got anything other than an offtopic? Well done Sir!

    --
    I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
  5. Re:huh? it looks like it's still for sale by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    maybe you should visit www.lysdexic.com as well...

  6. It looks like it expired, not stolen by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Informative
    According to the whois:

    Creation date: 28 Jan 2007 19:02:24
    Expiration date: 28 Jan 2008 19:02:24
    This looks more like the phonographers let the domain expire at the beginning of the year and someone else registered it on January 28th. This happens all the time, especially by spammers and registrars that turn it into a "search page" for a while.
    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.