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IFPI Gives Up Trying To Force ISP to Block The Pirate Bay
TorrentFreak (blog) Following two unsuccessful attempts at forcing ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay in Norway, the IFPI and performing rights outfit TONO have abandoned … |
Popularity: unranked [?]
When GGF announced that it would take over The Pirate Bay, the company bombarded the press with optimistic plans which indicated the site would become the largest online media store. The attention later shifted to the troublesome financial position of its CEO, but all along the company had confidence in its plans for the new and ‘legal’ Pirate Bay.
This fall, however, it all turned out too good to be true. After GGF’s shareholders agreed to acquire the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, the company had a month to come up with the proposed $7.8m (SEK 60 million). What followed was mostly silence and the deadline passed without an official response from the company.
From the moment it was announced the planned Pirate Bay acquisition had been surrounded by controversy. However, behind the scenes GGF CEO Hans Pandeya was drafting an even bigger deal with BitTorrent’s number one indexer at the time – Mininova.
“We will try to buy as many torrent sites as possible,” Pandeya told TorrentFreak back in August. In common with their plans for The Pirate Bay, GGF hoped to turn these sites into large media stores where users could download content with the full permission of copyright holders.
Little information has been made public about the “other” sites Pandeya was aiming at and how serious this interest was. Unlike all the other plans and deals that leaked out previously, no other torrent site has been publicly connected to GGF, until today where Pandeya’s connection to Mininova was exposed.
TorrentFreak has learned that GGF and Mininova already finalized a contract last summer to sell the torrent index for no less than 20 million Euros. This deal and the amount have been confirmed by several independent sources close to Mininova and GGF. One of the sources who confirmed the Mininova buyout plans was Hans Pandeya himself.
One of our sources further said that the deal had already been signed off by Mininova, and that GGF would wait for the verdict in Mininova’s appeal with the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. This verdict was due one day before the GGF shareholders were set to give the green light on the Pirate Bay deal.
A positive outcome for Mininova in that case would have certainly made the site a valuable asset, but as we now know Mininova lost in court and was forced to proactively filter titles and remove a great number of infringing, and indeed non-infringing torrents to ensure absolute compliance.
Sources from within Mininova have confirmed the existence of the 20 million euro acquisition offer but denied that the contract was already signed. Instead, Mininova would have liked to see some proof that GGF could pay the proposed sum before signing.
Although there seems to be some disagreement on the details, there is no doubt that GGF had set course to get the two major BitTorrent sites in possession. In fact, Mininova was brought in during licensing negotiations with several senior executives at one of the major record labels.
During a meeting with the label in London, Pandeya was assisted by his short-lived business partner Wayne Rosso. In the meeting the executives were asking for some traffic metrics and out of the blue and to the surprise of Rosso, Pandeya picked up his mobile phone and rang a Dutch number, claiming that it was a “company of his” close to Amsterdam that could provide some insight into the traffic question.
The person on the other end of the line provided some information to the label execs and plans were made to head over to The Netherlands to do some due diligence. When Rosso later asked Pandeya about this mysterious Dutch company Pandeya revealed that it was in fact Mininova.
“It’s Mininova. I’m going to buy Mininova too and eliminate all the competition,” Pandeya told Rosso explaining the Dutch connection.
At the time of this meeting the contract was already drafted but not signed by both parties. If it would have gone through GGF would have had the option to buy out the two largest BitTorrent sites online. Of course we now know that the deal didn’t go though. GGF didn’t have the money and Mininova might not have been worth it after the negative verdict in their case against BREIN.
In the months that followed Mininova removed over a million torrent files making it a less lucrative asset for Pandeya. On the other hand it also shows that a torrent site with only “authorized” content will quickly lose most of its regular visitors. Despite this knowledge and all the failed attempts to pull investors in, Pandeya said a few days ago that we haven’t seen the last of him yet.
“I have a lot of secret plans I’m working on,” he warned.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Italy Tries Once More To Force ISPs To Block Pirate Bay
paidContent:UK But now lawyers for Pirate Bay are deciding whether or not to appeal the case again, writes TorrentFreak. This would mean the case would go before the … Italian Court Reinstates ISP Block on The Pirate BayDigital Media Wire Italy Tries (Again) To Force ISPs To Block Pirate BayBroadbandReports.com The Pirate Bay to Be Blocked in ItalySoftpedia Afterdawn.com -Techdirt -TorrentFreak (blog) all 9 news articles » |
Popularity: 1% [?]
 TorrentFreak (blog) |
NBC Plots Crackdown On Olympic Pirates
TorrentFreak (blog) … (IOC) asked for “assistance” from the Swedish government with preventing video clips from the Olympics in Beijing being shared via The Pirate Bay. … |
Popularity: 1% [?]
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Pirate Bay's Ipredator VPN Opens To The Public
TorrentFreak (blog) After months of waiting, the Ipredator anonymity service from the founders of The Pirate Bay has finally opened its doors to the public. … |
Popularity: 4% [?]
 TorrentFreak (blog) |
IFPI Spokesman Jesper Bay Calls It Quits
TorrentFreak (blog) In response, the Pirate Bay team created a site in his name, TheJesperBay, which contained information and code allowing Tele2 users to evade the block. … |
Popularity: 7% [?]
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Report: Swedish Music Sales Up 10.2%; First Gain Since 2000
Digital Media Wire … in the country home to file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay since 2000, TorrentFreak reported, citing data from record label trade group IFPI Sweden. … Business Matters: IFPI Sweden, Guvera, Virgin Media, Pemberton FestivalBillboard Business News |
Popularity: 2% [?]
This week there are three newcomers in the top 10. Avatar is still going strong and again the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent.
The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.
RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
| Ranking | (last week) | Movie | Rating / Trailer |
|---|---|---|---|
| torrentfreak.com | |||
| (2) | Avatar (TS) | 8.9 / trailer | |
| %%69 | |||
| (…) | Smokin’ Aces 2 | ?.? / trailer | |
| %%85 | |||
| (…) | Amored | 5.7 / trailer | |
| %%101 | |||
| (4) | 2012 (R5) | 6.7 / trailer | |
| %%117 | |||
| (…) | Whiteout | 5.4 / trailer | |
| %%133 | |||
| (5) | The Time Traveler’s Wife | 7.2 / trailer | |
| %%149 | |||
| (1) | The Lovely Bones (DVDscr) | 7.3 / trailer | |
| %%167 | |||
| (3) | Up In The Air (DVDscr) | 8.3 / trailer | |
| %%185 | |||
| (7) | This Is It | 7.4 / trailer | |
| %%201 | |||
| (6) | The Invention of Lying | 6.7 / trailer | |
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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Top Tier BitTorrent Sites Suffer Pain in 2009
TorrentFreak (blog) By scale and exposure, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt became the three most prominent BitTorrent sites in the latter half of the decade, … |
Popularity: 4% [?]
 TorrentFreak (blog) |
The Pirate Bay Goes Retro With 2003 Layout
TorrentFreak (blog) The Pirate Bay is one of the longest-standing BitTorrent sites. The former BitTorrent tracker recently celebrated its 6th birthday, and this Christmas they … |
Popularity: 4% [?]
