Pirate Bay sold: now to become a legit site

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Hardly a surprise. I don't know how things work in Sweden, but in the UK a court has the power to seize the assets of a criminal to pay fines. Funnily enough, when the sale was announced I was going to ask if it would not be the case that the money would be seized by the court in order to pay the awarded damages.

My understanding is that in Sweden, the fines and jail time do not start until after the appeals process has been completed. If they end up losing the appeals, it wouldn't surprise me if part of the money goes to paying off the fine. That's what I assumed would happen from the first time I heard about them selling it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

As somebody on digg commented, they should change their name to "The Royal Navy Harbor."

Either that, or "DOA". It's pretty much Napster all over again.

The only thing I can figure is that whoever bought it is hoping that they can turn around and cash in again by selling the name off to another company. That's basically the only way "Napster 2.0" ever made any money (didn't BestBuy purchase them at one point?).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

My understanding is that in Sweden, the fines and jail time do not start until after the appeals process has been completed. If they end up losing the appeals, it wouldn't surprise me if part of the money goes to paying off the fine. That's what I assumed would happen from the first time I heard about them selling it.

The court can try to freeze money before the appeal process is finished.

Nobody of the convicted persons owned pirate bay. Who was the owner is is secret. So no money went to the convicted persons. So the money will not be used to pay the fine. If there had been some risk that the money from the sale could be confiscated I doubt that the owner would have sold.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by tompe

Nobody of the convicted persons owned pirate bay. Who was the owner is is secret. So no money went to the convicted persons. So the money will not be used to pay the fine. If there had been some risk that the money from the sale could be confiscated I doubt that the owner would have sold.

That's a good point. TPB has been sold before. The individuals being sued did not own it, they just ran it.

My understanding is that the "secret owner" was basically a shell company (for who I don't know), but I don't have any reliable support for that. It's just something I've heard/read online.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

My understanding is that the "secret owner" was basically a shell company (for who I don't know), but I don't have any reliable support for that. It's just something I've heard/read online.

When it was sold the first time maybe 5 years ago or so they wrote in the contract that income from a future sale must be used in a specific way. At least I have seen that claimed by the people that was convicted.