Fresh Pirate Bay Purchase Attempt By Four Potential Buyers
Written by enigmax on October 28, 2009Following the abortive attempt by Global Gaming Factory to purchase the Pirate Bay, fans and onlookers could be in for a sequence of new dramas as the site pursues new buyers. According to a report today, four entities are in the running, one of which proves particularly interesting.
Earlier this year, the shareholders of Global Gaming Factory agreed to acquire the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker. All the company had to do was come up with $7.8m (SEK 60 million), half of which to be paid in shares.
As anonymous investors pulled out and promises from the shareholders that they would come up with the funds themselves came to nothing, the deadline for the sale passed and the site stayed in the hands of Reservella, the Seychelles-based holding company that acquired The Pirate Bay two years ago.
But for those missing the optimistic press releases, bold statements and dramas of the attempted purchase by GGF, today brings good news.
According to a report, Reservella – with a helping hand from ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde – are in fresh talks with four potential buyers.
While the identities of two of the parties remains unknown, hints have been dropped about the other pair.
The first, GamersGate, is a Swedish company specializing in online computer games. Its CEO Theodore Bergquist, however, is playing his cards close to his chest.
“We are looking at many potential deals,” Bergquist told Di. “All I can say is that The Pirate Bay is an interesting brand loaded with great potential for those who deal with it properly.”
Holding a B.A. degree from Stockholm University, Bergquist joined Paradox Entertainment in May 2001 as CEO and was responsible for overall strategy, financial performance and growth initiatives. In 2004 he acquired the Interactive division of Paradox Entertainment and in April 2006 he became CEO of GamersGate, which was initially Paradox’s digital distribution portal.
Bergquist reported earlier this year that GamersGate had achieved 100% growth in business during 2008, both in terms of revenue and in the amount of new customers and titles on the site. The company is aiming at achieving up to 200% more during 2009. Owning The Pirate Bay’s domain would certainly help them achieve that.
The second potential buyer is a rather more familiar name – the utterly resilient Hans Pandeya.
Previously: Anti Piracy Laws and Lawsuits Fail to Change Social Norms
Next: RIAA Anti-Piracy Partner Clueless About BitTorrent
72 Responses
Good luck :)
Wow can’t believe that hans guy is trying to buy it again.
If this time around it can’t be bought, the legend of the pirate bay curse will be born.
Public trackers have really been going down hill lately. I finally had to give in and join a private tracker. You can’t even get high def shows on the TPB anymore. It was fun while it lasted. Goodbye.
Nothing proactive will become of this…
Just easy to write news posts :x
Pandeya again? hahaha. Be interesting to see who the other two parties offering turn out to be, i remember some companies were offering more than the original GGF pricetag a few months ago.
Also…. with a helping hand from Sunde? An article clearing up exactly how Reservella is set up would be enlightening.
I heard the name “Gaming Gate” the first time ever when I read the article. And I thought Pandeya was having a little self-healing time.
*cough*
Why would anyone pay millions for tpb?
Outside of a torrent site the brand has no value. If the torrents stop 99% of the traffic stops. Right now people are looking for alternatives because of tbp’s problems. tps is still great but it’s greatness will fade fast if problems persist,
If bought and converted to something else the brand is dead.
This is good and salt for MafRIAA.
The domain name
I heared Apple is also interested in TPB…. Is that correct…?
Hans Pandeya is just making some publicity, the GamersGate offer seems decent and hopely a membership on tpb will not cost so much.
I agree to pay a membership fee as long as TPB stays the same.
Pirate forever!
Pay the artists, not the big coorporations that “steal” and run!
I love Paradox games, EU3 and HOI3 are great. Will be sad if buying TPB implodes them.
But wish them the best of luck if they have good intentions.
@ #6 simplex
I’m not even sure that there is an article worth of information to write about Reservella…
The transaction of the sale of tpb to Reservella is so shady that there is almost no proof to even prove that the sale even took place…the founders and admins of tpb even go as far to claim to have no idea who owns, runs, or who is at least behind the face of Reservella… which honestly just raises even more ridicules questions…
Until any one can prove me other wise I’m set on the theory of Reservella simply being nothing more than a shadow company for tpb.
Fell free to tell me other wise… but please provide some reasonable proof.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8328820.stm
*Sigh*
Now instead of having countless posts about the ignorance of a single company, GGF, we will have countless posts about four companies!
Cant wait for TPB to go legit to stop you underlings leaching off my daddy,so there.
What freaking potential? This is lunacy. Are all of these companies that retarded as to not understand the only reason the TPB is as big as it is, is because people can PIRATE from there? Turn that into a legit paid service and 99.9% of the users move on, as most already have. Then you are left with a very expensive, and useless, domain name.
Unless we’re all missing the boat on this one. Maybe the actual goal is to buy TPB, keep the tracker and torrents going for a few months, while stealthily logging all user information to hand over for blanket lawsuits.
I’ve sat here for weeks trying to figure it out, and that’s the only way the purchase of TPb and transition to a paid service, makes any sense. Sue us all, use those profits to do something pointless with the domain name.
“Until any one can prove me other wise I’m set on the theory of Reservella simply being nothing more than a shadow company for tpb.”
Exactly. They ’sold’ the site to Reservella to place themselves lower on the food chain, so they can claim, hey, we’re just employees. Reservella in all likely hood is a company on paper only, with no office, probably ‘run’ buy one of the various pirate friendly lawyers out there.
Sorry torrentzbeak thats not going to happen the people will prevail :)
Bad news for UK filesharing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8328820.stm
Why don’t they learn from others’ mistakes?!
“[...] Reservella – with a helping hand from ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde [...]”
lol.
Paradox-games are the only pc-games I know of, that don’t have any copy- and or cd-protection. The Company never wanted to harras their fanbase…
amen
GAH. Pandeya should leave and never return to business.
@Enigmax:
The domain itself can have a lot of value if the site is kept like this.
If somebody change the website’s content too deeply, what will remain is the residual traffic of the domain name itself.
Owning a mispelling of the pirate bay domain name (mine is parked), and looking at the unique visits that I get and the worth of a click, I can safely say that the domain name itself won’t cover the expenses.
The only way for them to keep the money flow, is to keep the logic of the website: an “illegal” website (pirate bay), which is used by rebel “pirates”, to download music, movies, or whatever they want.
If this setup will be changed, the traffic will drop, and a domain name worth potential millions of dollars with no traffic isn’t a quite good investment.
By the way, I didn’t want to mention this, but they don’t own just “thepiratebay.org”. They own “piratebay.org”, “thepiratebay.com”, “thepiratebay.net”, and others.
If the contract is just about the sale of “thepiratebay.org” or “piratebay.org”, they can just move the website on another domain they own, and then google will do the rest, lol :)
Or somebody else can, and it’s already happened. The pirate bay clones are a reality already. Look at this:
http://www.btarena.net
I don’t understand how somebody could buy the domain name and expect to have great results, to cover millions of dollars of expenses, if they don’t have a big plan.
I personally don’t see (yet) any big plans possible that could persuade “pirates” to keep visiting the website, except to keep thepiratebay a tracker, and to monetize the traffic a little better than the piratebay’s crew is doing right now. They could earn more than they are right now. Probably right now they are not even making up for their expenses, or barely so.
The Pirate Bay has almost 4mio registered users.
If just 1mio of them set each $10 into a company owned by the 1mio users they then buy TPB.
They then just pay $0.50 a year to pay staff and servers.
The record and movie companies should secretly buy it,
Ha Ha
Jeez more tpb stories,this site should change its name to tpb blog page , ffs theres more to the p2p world than the pirate bay , who cares about them anyway all the trouble they are having now is largely down to their own making.
Are the pirate bay for sale? ,first i heard about that ,torrentfreak should do a story about that lmfao , oh i forgot theres already about 10 million
Silly Hands.. Don’t you remember what happened last time?
Fool TPB once, shame on you. Fool TPB twice, shame on them.
Wow, I cant imagine anyone actuaqlly wanting to buy a company that is facing so much turmoil! Just doesnt make sense.
Jess
http://www.anon-tools.mirroz.com
tpb forever, whatever will happen we will remember tpb!
tpb forever
share-
it’s faire
Jasper100
(and for the tyrants: indeed illegal stays illegal but doesn’t mean WRONG!)
Pandeya is here to raise the bid..
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/freefilesharing/
Pirates of teh Interwebs – The Curse of the Black Bay
Starring award winning actor Peter Sunde as Jack Swallows and Oscar nominee Hans Pandeya as Captain Barbosa
Coming soon to a Tube near you
(No pirates were harmed in the making of this movie)
Impersonator @18 – that’s not me.
Fail.
Good on yer Mandy – Vote Labour
Lord Mandelson praised the UK’s creative industries, which are worth around £16bn and employs 2 million people.
But it has been eroded in recent years, he said, by new ways of accessing content.
“I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing,” said Lord Mandelson.
The fact that young people now expect to download content for free was “morally as well as economically unsustainable,” he added.
Impersonator @18 – that’s not me.
Fail.
@38 rofl
@19
The best post I’ve seen on here in ages.
Sums it up 100% correctly.
Wow! Hans Pandemic is back again! :)
@40 rofl
I agree to the idea that users should buy Pirate Bay!
Off topic but interesting http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6894090.ece
yay.. that would be awesome.. Why didn’t they think about it?!?1 SELL ACTIONS! If every of us buys one action.. how many people would have to go to court at the same FREAKING time?
They would just insutiable and/or impossible. Not ignoring the fact that they wouldn’t be able to do a thing..
And a resource back up.. “Sell” all actions to someone wich isn’t in a country that doesn’t have copyright law… we would just win =)
@39 Oct 28, 2009 at 20:45 by tORRENTzBeAK
Good on yer Mandy – Vote Labour
You were right yesterday when you said that you learned nothing from me.
It does not matter who is in power the agenda will be the same.
Googlevideo my name then watch & learn
oh come on! we all know tpb ‘is’ reservella in disguise.
100% growth in 2008? That means nothing. If I made £1 last year, and then made £2 this year, then I would have achieved 100% growth. Wow.
Why someone would buy TPB???
If you knew it, you would be probably trying to buy it.
People how make money are the ones that can see the oportunity where others only see lost of time and/or money. Thats why we have much less rich men than average ones. :)
Enough news posts about _potential_ buyers. I don’t give a shite. Just let us know when it’s finally sold off or dead.
If The Pirate Bay falls then is surly will be remembered and leave behind a legacy unlike many of these other trackers.
TPB is a brand, a symbol that walks on its own feet.
Wherever the ship sails I wish the best for its crew. As long as they keep the original values =)
TPB, search down? Site is up, but search is down.. 10/28/09
All I get is something like:
“could not connect to caching server”???
wtf?
I know I got the same thing that at TPB trying to search: “could not connect to caching server” It was fine this morning when I was looking for something before work…not now…but I have been having problems with it off and on lately, usually doesn’t last too long.
@13 said-
“Hans Pandeya is just making some publicity, the GamersGate offer seems decent and hopely a membership on tpb will not cost so much.
I agree to pay a membership fee as long as TPB stays the same.
Pirate forever!
Pay the artists, not the big coorporations that “steal” and run!”
I totally agree!
I will GLADLY give to the artist, but I’d rather do that then help out the industry.
Once I get a debit card- ima start just donating to the bands directly, but till then its all band shirts and concerts for me-
Hahaha
I will buy The Pirate Bay.
Of course, everyone will think the real owner is Reasonella. Hans will take care of all financial and technical matters. He’s good with that. Indeed, I predict big things…
Hey guys, do you like dating with a cougar? Or are you a cougar yourself? Okay, no matter you are looking for a NSA, FWB or serious relationship. You’ll want to check this out:
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The news from Britain (Mandelson) are worrying.
TF – I hope you will cover it.
Sure, he says this policy will be moderate etc, etc… But it’s a FIRST step in the WRONG direction.
BRITISH PEOPLE AND ANYONE ELSE WHO FEELS INSPIRED – PLEASE SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AGAINST THIS ON:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/freefilesharing/
You need a UK address, but if you don’t *currently* have one, just google for one. It is not checked.
Imo, all this “buy” story is just a set up to destabilize TPB and create confusion. By doing this they hope to achieve in a medium term a slow down in the traffic to TPB.. For sure RIAA/MPAA must be behind all this rumors.
In part they got some results, because ppl nowdays dont trust ppl at TPB and lots of them deleted their user accounts and went to other sites…
Just my two cents.
Yawn. Article #5907542897 about the sale of TPB. It’s such a non-event, I’ve seriously grown bored of reading about it.
Wake me up when it’s sold.
Enigmax, instead of just acting as Sunde’s stenographer, please clarify your claims:
Exactly how is Reservella a ‘holding company’ for TPB?
According to http://www.seychellesoffshore.com … “An offshore holding company can be used to hold the shares of subsidiaries located in high tax countries.”
Was or is TPB a registered company in Sweden? It does not currently appear in any search of the official companies registry … https://snr4.bolagsverket.se/snrgate/startIn.do
If it is not, how could its shares be ‘held’ by an offshore company? If it is, under what name can it presently be found and how and when was the transfer of shares to Reservella effected?
If in fact in 2006 only ownership of the domain name was transferred to the shell company, will this hold up (under hostile legal scrutiny) as a genuine change of ownership for a (possibly unregistered) Swedish business for the purposes of civil/criminal/tax liability?
—-
Enigmax, when will you produce serious answers to this type of question, as opposed to just another mendacious sales pitch ghostwritten by Peter Sunde?
—-
PS: Perhaps Bergquist intends to pay for TPB with a mountain of worthless GGF shares, the same ones P.Sunde recommended TPB users sink their money into because ‘we think it is really funny, actually’?
“Brand” of all things. Making TPB into a generic fashion statement.
“B.A” degree??? what a bullshit degree that is. everyone knows that the people who took BA degrees did so to flake through college. what a loser!
who are you…………………….
BAM private torrent sites ftw.
TPB is a name, if all fails, that remains.. Look at Atari, still making T-Shirts out of that.
it’s all about the money.. tadudum dum dumdum
they better admit it.. TPB is commercial lol!
@9
It’s not only the brand they are paying for. They are paying for the users (Although most will most likely disapear) There are still millions of people visiting TPB.
We are now suing GamersGate for thinking about TPB
What does it matter?
The pirate bay turned into absolute crap that’s next to useless long ago..
Few things you can find on it are monitored to all hell, and is also full of countless trojans and keyloggers among many others..
What, just because you can add it as a tracker and all that basic crap?
Pirate Bay will stand for ever!!!
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