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Pirate Bay 2.0: Pay Pirates to Become Consumers

wired.com — The Swedish gaming executive who’s gambling nearly $8 million buying The Pirate Bay is convinced he can turn the 20 million users of the world’s most notorious file sharing site into well-behaved consumers — even amid a deluge of account-deletion requests.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 3, 2009

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  • IronChef75, on 07/02/2009, -1/+245Way to flush $8 million down the toilet.
  • deadguysleeps, on 07/02/2009, -7/+192. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _________
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ./ It’s a trap! \
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  • alpha88, on 07/02/2009, -1/+139What, does he not understand the reason behind The Pirate Bay's name? What a retard.
  • doshindude, on 07/02/2009, -3/+128*****. I'm not even going to touch that site once it is handed over. Hell, I'm considering boycotting it now for other torrent sites.
  • inactive, on 07/02/2009, -3/+107***** the RIAA!
  • daBKLYNdoorman, on 07/02/2009, -3/+99Trying to remove piracy from The Pirate Bay is like trying to remove transformation from Transformers. It just won't happen. And if it does, it won't happen under the same roof.
  • DaiMa, on 07/02/2009, -2/+82Never going to work. If I would like to support the "copyright holders" I would by buying, don't want my brain washed by their commercials....

    FAIL.

    New TPB logo :
    http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1832/piratesell ...
  • BobTheTaco, on 07/02/2009, -1/+74I predict a huge rise in the userbase for Mininova and Demonoid...
  • gerrymac, on 07/02/2009, -2/+74wow... so it costs 8 million dollars to shut down the pirate bay, because i can assure you, no one will buy content off of the pirate bay. they'll just be running it into the ground.
  • NaziHatinChimp, on 07/03/2009, -1/+44Here's a present.
    http://www.google.com/cse?cx=003849996876419856805 ...

    all you need.
  • stoanhart, on 07/02/2009, -7/+49Shouldn't we give them a chance before declaring this venture failed from the getgo? People are always saying that the industry (whichever one is being talked about) needs to innovate and find a new business model, but when they actually try, no one cares. The article mentions paying people for bandwidth they seed - that's definitely a goods start. I for one am interested in seeing where this goes.
  • bbliss17, on 07/02/2009, -0/+38How are they going to pay pirates? If that is the case I will be seeding over 10,000 things and making a bundle from this.
  • peestandingup, on 07/03/2009, -1/+38"Pirates to Become Consumers"

    Wanna bet.
  • DarkCloud515, on 07/03/2009, -3/+39 To be honest, you can look at this in a positive way. The Pirate Bay was a beast, they had much balls. But they were the major player and their tracker did a ton of work. That makes them the prime target for people like the RIAA/MPAA. By selling TPB, they start spreading the seeds/peers around. Making it so that if one goes down, the community doesn't have to bend over. Hopefully, with the extra million in their pockets after paying off their bills they can do something new. Who knows, maybe this is just part of a huge plan to take over the world.
  • had3l, on 07/03/2009, -5/+33The previous controllers of Pirate Bay are really smart.

    After the piratebay trials, they realized they couldn't continue with the current model, that is why they are developing things like ipredator and videobay. All they had to do was find a sucker that was willing to buy the site. He is really just buying the domain and the design/logo.
  • damnshoes, on 07/02/2009, -2/+28I will send invites...just send me a shout on digg.

    OH WAIT.
  • DAVENP0RT, on 07/03/2009, -2/+26***** that *****, I'm not paying.
  • yocouchdigga, on 07/03/2009, -1/+25This Swedish Gaming Executive is either out of his damn mind or has a money tree that blooms billion dollar bills.
  • kenhatesemos, on 07/03/2009, -0/+23you often get torrents with little to no seeds via that method.
  • handheldchimp, on 07/03/2009, -1/+24The Pirate Bay: 2003 - 2009
    "Good night sweet prince"
  • swiftyzz, on 07/03/2009, -0/+22Anyone remember Napster...
  • sexybobo, on 07/03/2009, -0/+20the user base which is leaving at an alarming pace.
  • halo3d, on 07/03/2009, -2/+22DONT TALK ABOUT DEMONOID!
  • killerdavy, on 07/03/2009, -0/+20True, but Google will never shut down.
  • scoot2006, on 07/03/2009, -1/+20"Pirates to Become Consumers"... we already were. Your best consumers. Suck a dick recoring industry... suck a dick.
  • inactive, on 07/03/2009, -1/+20doubt it - more like every decent open tracker is going to have a major influx of leechers
  • szurgot, on 07/03/2009, -2/+20Well now looking for torrents will actully involve some work again.
    Not like this is really going to stop anyone except people to stupid to find other sources and those to afraid of change to leave a website.
  • kevro, on 07/03/2009, -0/+17It would be clever if they took the money and then created piratebay.org With out the "the" and told the whole community to come on over.
  • weeFred, on 07/02/2009, -1/+17"The RIAA wins again. AHAHAHAHAHA LOSERS!" - If you had to use the word again, then you know they've not actually won anything. They've just succeeded in making pirates use a different site. How exactly is that winning?
  • DaiMa, on 07/03/2009, -0/+15Google does not track the torrents, they index the torrents and looking by the number of torrents TPB tracked, probably half of those torrents you'll find trough google will be dead.
  • maz2331, on 07/02/2009, -1/+16But they are the next targets...
  • CalcProgrammer1, on 07/03/2009, -0/+14Where's the distributed tracker system? It's time for the technology to evolve again. First Napster died and the evolution of the KaZaa and LimeWire networks, then people moved to torrents, now we need to improve again. Torrents have a great advantage over other formats in that they can be searched by web sites but are limited by the sites tracking them. I think that new torrent sites could survive by cross-tracking torrents. Instead of opening up 5 small sites, each with their own users and torrents, open up 5 new trackers and distribute torrents to all of them. Not having a single target will drive the **AA's crazy. If we have 10 trackers running all the popular torrents it'll be a lot harder to kill. The torrent system already supports multiple trackers, we just need to implement it.
  • BREZZZ, on 07/03/2009, -1/+14Maybe he thinks it's like an honor amongst thieves thing. Pirates don't pirate in the pirate bay as they are with others like them.It is a place of safe harbor for pirates to do everything other than pillage and steal.
  • blayregreene, on 07/03/2009, -2/+15http://instantbillymays.com/
  • robertisaar, on 07/03/2009, -0/+13i will agree that they have the capability to make another TPB, but maybe they won't get ***** over this time...
  • Yarkz, on 07/03/2009, -0/+13http://www.instanttrap.com/
  • suntzusputnik, on 07/03/2009, -0/+12pirate bay people will sell, move on and establish a new site and carbon copy of the original. they'll keep the $8 million and invest some of that into their piratebay youtube project. if they don't, there's no cause for alarm, piratebay frequenters will move on to other sites, and they will grow, become legend, get shutdown, rinse and repeat.
  • CrazyChair, on 07/03/2009, -0/+11Rapidshare is horrible. Usenet is great, but we do not talk about usenet ಠ_ಠ
  • xngk, on 07/03/2009, -2/+13Piracy helps the artists you are talking about by spreading and strengthening their fan bases. A tiny UK band can sell out a concert in a poor country their CD wasn't even for sale in. They lose virtually no money because they get nearly nothing per CD sale, and make more directly through concerts and merch.

    You really don't know what you're talking about because you are not in the industry, get off your high horse.
  • halo3d, on 07/03/2009, -1/+12Is that person mentally ill? Guess what the whole point of that website was you doughnut... give downloads to people who don't wanna buy stuff.

    And now you think just cause you bought it, people will buy stuff? lol
  • BREZZZ, on 07/03/2009, -0/+10egh. The last time I was on there I wanted some warez and got a virus. I searched for a song and got nothing but *****. They had a cam and 1 person was seeding, or whatever the ***** they called it at 1K.
  • Stirk, on 07/03/2009, -0/+10It's hard to believe that the Pirate Bay people would sell out, given their past dedication to the ideology. Pirate Bay was always the site I trusted most not to give in to take downs etc.
    Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow there will be a "LOL JK" picture on the piratebay website, but if there isn't, congratulations to them for making $8mil, but this changes nothing about internet piracy...
  • planetmatt, on 07/03/2009, -0/+10Sorry to burst your bubble but some of the new Transformer toys don't even transform. ***** lame. A non transforming toy based on a transforming movie character based on a transforming toy bases on a transforming cartoon character is full on retard.
  • szurgot, on 07/03/2009, -2/+12@samard2002 You my good sir are a tool
  • merreborn, on 07/03/2009, -1/+11I wonder what ISPs will think about that...

    Also, it seems like they'd have a hard time paying a worthwhile rate. If they pay anything near what the bandwidth costs, then they're better off just buying their own bandwidth. And if they're paying less, then it's not worth it to users.
  • alexgdorman, on 07/03/2009, -1/+10Who cares what the owners of the site want to do? who cares about the whole "pirate culture"? As long as I can download free ***** I'm happy.
  • infinitus64, on 07/03/2009, -0/+9The isp's have been given money from the tax payers and customers (see how they got us twice) to upgrade their backbone architecture but they did not do anything with it and are trying to institute tiered service structure. So ***** the Conglomerates all of them...!!!!
  • sexybobo, on 07/03/2009, -0/+8Most people dont like paying to steal *****.
  • istolvampire, on 07/03/2009, -0/+8A new business model? hmmmmmmmmmmm

    I wonder how many of TPB's 20 million subscribers or just anybody wanted to use torrents would be willing to sit through a no more than 2 minute advertisement right before you could get the torrent file for the ability to download legally?

    If most of you would be willing to do that then that my friends is real estate and real estate is money. In fact big money from the way I see it for the artists. Just a thought.
  • d3sp, on 07/03/2009, -0/+8Suprnova emotions all over again. We will continue.
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