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Pirate Bay Shifts Connections From Sweden To Ease Heat on Pirate Party

Posted by timothy on from the arrrrr-they-scared? dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this news (excerpted from IT World) that follows up on the report of pressure put on Sweden's Pirate Party for its connection to The Pirate Bay: "The Pirate Bay has opened two new gateways to its internal network in order to shield its current Internet provider, the Swedish Pirate Party, which had been threatened with legal action if it did not stop providing Internet access to the torrent search site by Tuesday. The Swedish Pirate Party had provided bandwidth to The Pirate Bay for about three years because it was hard for the site to find anyone else who would do so. But last Tuesday the Rights Alliance, an organization that represents the film industry, gave it an ultimatum: The Pirate Party had to cut off Internet access to the torrent search site or face legal action. The Pirate Bay's administrators said in a post on Facebook that, because of the legal threat and the potential cost of fighting it, 'We've taken the decision to move on to Norway and Spain.'"

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. They're afraid of going after downloaders. by concealment · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Pirate Bay through its unfortunate but iconic name will always be a target. If they'd named it "Generic Torrents," we wouldn't see this.

    However, as someone who uses TPB to distribute legal content, I don't want it to go away. It is the most high-profile torrent tracker in the world and that makes it useful for spreading information.

    I don't know how much of its content is legal, but I think the roles here are reversed. If someone uploads a torrent of illegal information (child porn, piracy, state secrets, etc) and other someones download it, then those are the people who should be prosecuted.

    The recording industry is attacking TPB instead of attacking the someones who are doing the illegal acts, because those someones are mostly the children and college students of middle America. It would be politically unpopular to attack those.

  2. That's not a bad strategy by JohnnyComeLately · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have some intel on how far their legal teams are getting to filing, and then right before they file.... move. Now, they have to start over in the new country. Watch them, wait for them get ready to file.... move. Eventually they'll realize they're spending millions on legal teams and not getting anywhere. Eventually, you start over, but since time has progressed (as I'm sure technology will for distribution in some way) they'll have to re-review or start over.

  3. Re:Counter attack. by Kiwikwi · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Rights Alliance is in effect threatening a political party to a government. Any obligations Sweden has to that organizations hosting country, could become null and void as a result.

    The Rights Alliance (Rättighetsalliansen) is a Swedish organization, with sister organizations in other countries (e.g. RettighedsAlliancen in Denmark).

    You must realize that Sweden's obligations to the USA trumps Sweden's obligations to its own population.