Do the people who seed or provide the contents for the torrents get a cut too? If I...er, someone takes the time and puts in the effort to get original VHS or vinyl or some such content to digital format and maintain the system to seed the torrent, shouldn't I gut a stipend?

Huh, a new business model you say? It might indeed be new, if prices make sense! As consumers, we'd be pleased to buy a good product at a decent price, but we hate being offered garbage at rip-off prices..

Dang, now I have to start looking elsewhere for porn. Sigh...

This is from TRP blog, this morning:

"Yes, it's true.

News reached the press today in Sweden - The Pirate Bay might get aquired by Global Gaming Factory X AB.

A lot of people are worried. We're not and you shouldn't be either!

TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site.
As all of you know, there's not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It's the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen.

We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!

If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us.

The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we're fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It's win-win-win.

The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don't worry - be happy!"

Torrents FTL. Usenet FTW.

I like the joke there 'the profits will be used blah blah'
As if there will be profits from a dead site, haha.

We'll have to see how this evolves. I never really used the original TPB so no major loss.

This is bigger than Michael Jackson's death...

Making it legal? Sure, all downloads via torrent is for sale.

so useless

Don't worry people! I'm quite sure that the people behind the company are the same ones that are behind TPB. There are some ultra-liberal political organizations that are quite ready, and able to take action on several levels... I know some of these people from "back in the day" and I have some inside perspective on this whole operation.
I do not know this for a fact but it is totally in line with their ultra-liberal, capitalist ideaology! :-)

Some of these people are fuckin' crazy! They do have a couple of good ideas though and they sure do have the balls to pull it through! I'm just glad they're not involved in the Pirate Party since they actually got a mandate in the European Parliament! 226 000 swedes actually voted for this single issue party! About 7% of the vote although turnup was dismal by Swedish standards, only 45%...

There will be always another place to find torrents anyways.

Every time a major torrent site is closed down, it forces umpteen million people to look elsewhere, bolstering the traffic for more obscure ones until it is the turn of other sites to take the limelight.

TPB was much much smaller and tracked less stuff until suprnova.org went pop.

RIP The Pirate Bay.

It is officially no longer cool to wear the TBP T-Shirts.

Adi

So they finally decided that their law system was, also, too corrupt to risk more trials so they bailed out before they got a life sentence for hosting torrents. Now they live off all their supporters donations fighting in the name of justice!, just like every other political body. All talk and no walk.

Next up, a company is sweeping in to claim the IP and all the traffic it will inevitably generate regardless of what is hosted there. Yay bottom feeders!

LOL public torrent sites

Those Win7 prerelease prices starting to look a little better?

Can anyone say demoniod.com? I can.

Uhhhh can we say, Napster before and after, anyone?

Jerry's kids?

They just lost most of their traffic doing that. The point of people using that site was to avoid paying in the first place.

This is kind of silly. This would be like buying a casino then removing all of the gambling.

You know, I had always been a fan of audiogalaxy.

Time to find another torrent site. Looks like TPB founders might have the money to pay those fines after all. Might not be so easy to transfer that money to a foundation with the content mafia on your tail.

Ha, Napster! Those were the days when you'd have to wait 10 minutes for one MP3. Back when ISDN was fast and people searched on the world wide web instead of "googling".