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Raided PRQ Torrent Site is Back and Hiring Cinemas To Celebrate

On the first day of October, police in Sweden raided so-called “bulletproof hoster” PRQ. The action took dozens of file-sharing sites offline, but it was later announced that the main target was Tankafetast, Sweden’s second favorite torrent site. A few days later Antipiratbyran confirmed the site’s demise but now, just three weeks later, Tankafetast is back, taunting the anti-piracy group not only with a return online and the launch of a clothing range, but by renting cinemas in celebration.

October 1st was a day of some considerable panic in the file-sharing world. Many dozens of file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay, went offline at the same time.

The problems were caused by a police raid on Swedish webhost PRQ. The authorities, it was later revealed, were targeting two sites.

One was Appbucket.net, a site that was previously subjected to legal action in August when the FBI seized its domain in a crackdown against Android app piracy.

The other was Tankafetast, once Sweden’s second largest torrent site. The site had called it quits in February after being put under pressure by Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén and Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted, but it returned shortly after.

This resurrection obviously didn’t go unnoticed, hence the PRQ raid three weeks ago today. But despite the setback Tankafetast is now back online, energized, and more belligerent than ever before. On their frontpage is the following notice:

Tanka1

The message, which appears to refer to an earlier statement from Antipiratbyrån, says that lawyer Henrik Pontén was wrong to presume that the site had disappeared for good.

TorrentFreak spoke with Pontén who declined to comment on the site’s return due to there being an ongoing police investigation.

Taunts aside, Tankafetast’s operators appear to be trying to raise the profile of the site. They have launched a clothing range, consisting mainly of t-shirts carrying a range of pro-filesharing slogans such as Keep Calm and Download and Support Your Local Uploader, plus a few with defiant messages on Tankafetast’s return.

Tanka2

In addition, on Saturday the site’s operators announced that in celebration of the site’s return they would be hiring three cinemas in Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm and giving away tickets to fans of the site. The first viewing has been announced as taking place this Thursday for the premiere of the new Bond movie, Skyfall.

What is interesting to observe here is that when it comes to file-sharing the Swedes are very defiant indeed, even in the face of adversaries such as the government and police. Whether the site will be able to back up its defiance with long-term uptime remains to be seen, but even that seems to be more likely than their aim this week of giving away at least hundred of their cinema tickets to girls.

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  • thedude321

    Now thats more like it. IN YO FACE! Pirate style! XD

    • NDuD

      “…giving away at least hundred of their cinema tickets to girls”.

      I just wonder what are they planning to do with many girls in a small and dark place…?

      • Lord of the Files

        “I just wonder what are they planning to do with many girls in a small and dark place…?”

        Well duh. Watch a movie of course, Skyfall in this instance. :p

  • GERNIGGER

    PIRACY IS THETF NIGGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGERGER NIGGER

  • Guest

    I think it was supposed to say… if you are a long-term fan of Hollywood movies, we the MPAA will be giving out free tickets to some of the newly released movies at select theaters.

    • http://deborah-rowe.myopenid.com/ Deborah Rowe

      Pirates have the long term strategy skills of petulant 14 year olds...Goo.Gl/Y6z3j

      • Guest

        cool flamebait & scam link.
        how much do you get paid “without selling anything” yourself?

  • http://twitter.com/happyizpunjai happy

    piracy is a simple solution in a complicated world.

    • Who

      do you even know the real definition of piracy?

      • polsenpol

        Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea ..

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          Yep and it involves physical violence at sea at that. Internet ‘piracy’ (better called non-approved trading of copyrighted content) is nowhere near comparable.

  • hmm

    quality nice one

  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    It’s always so refreshing to witness first-hand the resurrection of a Phoenix – and especially when they do it in such style :)

    Where’s the link to buy my t-shirt from the UK, or did I miss that one?

    • ScrewEwe2

      Rob, while your at it, pick me up one of those t-shirts too., size large. :-)

  • 1hhh1

    my oh my,why can’t Demonoid to the same

    • Wefwefwfewefwewef

      That site hardly had any seeders. It was a joke trying to support it.

      • Anonymous

        Well you right about the seeders but they did have torrents that no other website had that is what made it unique.

        • Who

          according to what I was told by some members of that site it was doomed.

        • 1hhh1

          I’ve heard that it’s about to be resurrected as .eu

  • Anon

    Defiance after take down that fuels more laws, more raids, more punishments and a greater loss of our freedoms. Pirates have the long term strategy skills of petulant 14 year olds.

    • Fredrika

      > “Pirates have the long term strategy skills of petulant 14 year olds.”

      Since(as i educated you about the other day, which you couldn’t come up with any relevant response to) the pirates(well at least they could be pirates) already have developed fully functional next generation filesharing protocols that are completely decentralized and impossible to stop neither legislatively or technically, regardless of what resources the distribution industry or any fascist governments throw at them, isn’t it the other way around?

      As i said, ask China, Iran, a technician or a 14 year old with basic knowledge of the Internet if you don’t believe me. Again your laughable desperate ignorance shines through.

    • Embrace Change

      Please recommend an alternative action.

    • Guest

      The laws don’t work.
      The raids don’t work.
      The punishments don’t work.
      The attempts to take away more of our freedoms aren’t working(SOPA, PIPA = DEAD).

      lol @ Anon

      So desperate.

      He sees the MAFIAA dying, piracy thriving like it’s unopposed, and all he can do is flail around and cry.

      • Who

        the reason y it don’t work is because they got no right to go after any one for so called piracy/theft, if you look deep enough for a true answer to this crap the real truth will set you free and they don’t like that one bit.

    • lattari

      You’re hung up on the rape victim/beaten wife mentality: It was my fault, If I just act nice enough he won’t harm me anymore.

    • Andrew Lee

      You know crack kills right?

    • The Guest

      Yes, retarded sheeps like you deserves slavery!

    • Walternate

      Hey anon trollie, we missed your spineless dribble. But you’ve got it ass backwards as usual. It’s shitty little MAFFIA crybabies such as yourself who’s on the loosing end of the strategy stick.

      You and your ilk will end up in cages, flinging poo at the tourists, eventually going extinct. Just F off and die already

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      Inefficient laws which have no good means of enforcement and raids which as a net result cause only collateral damage and cost incurred by the taxpayers have no hope of succeeding. Especially when filesharing is such a popular pastime among the citizenry as a whole.

      Indeed, we saw exactly the same scenario in the 50′s, and you guys had exactly, word for word, the same tune.

      Guess what? We won then.

      And today our abilities and headway in the weapons used in practice so far surpass yours it’s ridiculous. It’s deliciously ironic that you should say we are lacking in long-term strategy skills when we’ve won every war in this arena for 60 years so far.

  • mc007

    pirate != anonymous ! thats a shame.

    • http://twitter.com/krozareq krozareq

      Guy Fawkes mask != Anonymous.

      Going by the V for Vendetta movie, it stands for defiance. Also has an earlier use by the Brits that nobody cares about.

  • Andrew me

    The most amazing thing here is the fact that they are obviously going to be paying a lot of money for people to watch a movie legally, i wonder if that will even be noticed by the lawmakers or ignored when asking why people are sharing content so much these days, why have the once respected by the majority copyright laws become a farce and ignored by billions around the world.

    • Kibwe McIntyre

      Oh the Irony

  • lattari

    I agree with the end of the article, Swedes have a healthy attitude towards file-sharing. Others should follow suit and ‘come out of the closet’. Many people do it, but consider it somehow embarrassing.

    It’s more admirable to be proud of what to you get into.

    • Himpulat

      My daughter asked where do all the childrens movies and series that apear on the kids-folder come from, and I explained that a nice person buys one disk and shares it, and when we get it we share it with others, sharing is caring, I would be amazed if she does not turn out to be a pirate in the future…we live in Finland, next to Sweden.

      • Anyone

        that’s the way to do this, educate your kids

      • Walternate

        +1 DAD, btw get her a cute litte pink pirate hat – that would be cool.

        On another note: Lets face it, the majority of the 50+ somethings are a lost cause. Now don’t get all hopping mad if you’re over 50 and reading this – then you’re obviously outside that statistic.

        Anyway that generation are just more worried about their mortgage interest rate, their pension and getting the right winter tires for their volvo. They are usually tech savvy enough to drool on an apple product. Digital liberty is the last thing on the mind of a generation who barely know which which end of the tv remote is up.

        Like this guy here, we got to start with the kids. Many of us pirates are starting to have little “scurvy maties and wenches” running around at home. Lets make sure we prepare them for the future, teach them to share.

  • Guest

    Henrik Pontén, at the time of the raid: “The rule of law has spoken and this is a defining moment in the lengthy discussion of copyright on the Internet”

    lulz

    Yet another botched failraid against a torrent site is a defining moment? Really?

    Or well, Henrik, don’t despair. Maybe Tankafetast will send you some free movie tickets.

    • yes

      They really should.

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      No, no, he’s quite right – the outcome of this raid was indeed a defining moment. It turned out to be yet one more lump of taxpayer money thrown in a lake with no net returns for the pro-copyright crowd.

  • Anonymous

    Oh look Hollywood decided to take over the website and use it to turn people into Hollywood sheeple, how nice. *sarcasm*

  • Zan

    showing a screening of skyfall you say?

    HDCAM copy coming in 5 4 3 …

  • Abba

    Maybe someone can show up to the cinemas as the joker like in Colorado :-)

    • Guest

      If someone does, you’d better hope someone else doesn’t try to CAM the movie in the same theater, because you know which one the MPAA will send the cops after.

    • SluttyMary

      That shooter ruined Batman for me…. all those people running around in front of the camera… bad upload.

  • Pingback: Raided PRQ Torrent Site is Back and Hiring Cinemas To Celebrate … | The Government Site

  • terlmaa

    Outstanding dude! Now thats what I am talking about man. Wow.
    ko-privacy.tk

    • i_hate_spammers!!!

      ^^^ douchebag spammer ^^^

      • Colin Carr

        Don’t feed the spammers!
        Just flag them for moderator attention.

        • SluttyMary

          you just fed it douchebag… oh wait…

  • Bm

    Well… sounds nice, except any cinema purchases will allow a new avenue of investigation on law-enforcement’s part.

    Sometimes, playing smart means not playing.

    • watfordjc

      How’s that?

      If I buy 200,000 cinema tickets and give them away on twitter, local radio, or stand outside the cinema shouting “FREE TICKETS! FREE TICKETS!” what laws have I broken?

      Unless I am writing my purchase off for tax reasons, I would consider any investigation by the authorities to be a waste of taxpayers money, resources, and an abuse of power.

      Google has 500 million results for ‘giving away cinema tickets’ including Sky, Virgin Media, Natwest, Cardiff Cycling Challenge, Emirats, Mastercard, Ink and Water, iVillage, East Coast, Commonwealth Bank, NME Radio, Motherwell Times, Esso, Total Film, Show Film First, and millions of others.

      I’m fairly sure there’s a reason the police don’t stand in the sewers waiting for a suspect to flush the toilet so their shit can be bagged and tagged. Just because someone is being investigated doesn’t mean “how often suspect cuts his toenails” will be part of that investigation without a valid reason of relevancy.

      Then again, we’re talking about Sweden.

      • Anyone

        that’s $200,000 x whateverthepriceis theses assholes can spend buying politicians (you know the artists don’t see any of it because of Hollywood Accounting)

        that’s the point he was trying to make, giving away tickets for free is of course legal

  • ThumbsUpThumbsDown

    What is the most important attribute of the modern Internet?

    Copyright holders are quick to lay claim to “legal” corporate ownership under the hegemony of national governments. For them, the modern Internet is the “vessel” that holds their legal entitlement to collect monopoly premiums in perpetuity on the global distribution of any and all Intellectual/Artistic work product.

    Is this the most important attribute of the modern Internet?

    Billions of world citizens cry out a loud NO every day. They say NO to entrenched oligarchy trying to masquerade as functioning democracy. They say no to despots trying to hide the slaughter of innocents. They say NO to corrupt politician trying to deny the selling out of their electorates. They say NO to Media Companies selling last years garbage multiple times in multiple formats at extortionate mark-ups. They say No to ISPs colluding to control the national telecommunications market through monopolisticly imposed TOSs. They say NO to the failed Regulators and Politicians who look the other way. They say NO to proposed laws that reduce or nullify their Constitutional Rights.

    It is this that is the most important attribute of the Modern Internet: It is the vast social megaphone that allows average citizens to speak TRUTH to POWER.

    • 7th_Guest

      Although also being the Perpetual Copying Machine that enables and democratizes access to global culture on top of that doesn’t hurt either ;).

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  • Anti Troll

    Wow, a PRQ story and no anti- NAMBLA posts from chronoss chiron, aka Luis Corrons, el Presidente de la Asociación de Hackers Unidos, yet. I see he has had a lot of comments flagged for review over the last few day’s, LOL.

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      Agreed. The guy LOVES to spew his anti-pedosexual trash on articles where it doesn’t apply.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003037095323 Jerilyn Nighy

    A pirate is someone who commandeers property on the high seas at the business end of a cutlass. That has nothing to do with filesharing.

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      And “Gay” used to mean first “Merry”, later on “Deviant”…and today it’s proudly worn by the Gay Pride guys and gals.

      Basically ever since copying a song on to a cassette in the 50′s earned you the hysterical cries of “Pirate, PIRATE!!” from the RIAA, filesharing – or copying media – has become synonymous with “piracy”.

      The only solution to a misnomer such as that is to take the word back and turn it into something positive.

      In naming filesharers “Pirates” the RIAA and Ifpi hoped to slur filesharers. Which of course turned into the opposite, becoming a unifying symbol and a brand name inspiring curiosity.

  • nomnomnom

    keep calm and download

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  • TempleNewsam

    Come on folks. Please go to http://www.torproject.org and download the package. Become a TOR relay today. Only costs a little bandwidth.

    Can we have an onion site for Pirate Bay on Tor, or is there already? just for the search and links, still downloading conventionally with Utorrent etc.

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      Actually, it costs a LOT of bandwidth. My friend runs a TOR relay and it costs him 20GB’s a month according to his monitoring software (monitors how much bandwidth a program uses, nothing else).

      Now, that is small considering I personally use 100GB’s of bandwidth a month for various things.

      • Hogspace

        It is configurable both upload and download, give what you can. During the day I run 64k, in the evening 128k.
        Even with my sustained attack on the copyright industries I get nowhere near my 400GB a month cap ;o)

    • Hogspace

      It is configurable both upload and download, give what you can. During the day I run 64k, in the evening 128k.
      Even with my sustained attack on the copyright industries I get nowhere near my 400GB a month cap ;o)

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