This is where Popcorn Time excelled when it debuted earlier this year. While it was the same old torrent content underneath, the presentation was streets ahead of anything seen before. With appetites whetted, enthused BitTorrent fans have been waiting for the next big thing ever since.

Recently news circulated of a new service which in several headlines yesterday was heralded as the new Popcorn Time. Joker.org is a web-based video service with super-clean presentation. It’s premise is straightforward – paste in a magnet link or upload a torrent file from your computer then sit back and enjoy the show.

Not only does Joker work, it does so with elegance. The interface is uncluttered and intuitive and the in-browser window can be expanded to full screen. Joker also provides options for automatically downloading subtitles or uploading your own, plus options for skipping around the video at will.

While these features are enough to please many visitors to the site, the big questions relate to what is going on under the hood.

Popcorn Time, if we’re forced to conduct a comparison, pulls its content from BitTorrent swarms in a way that any torrent client does. This means that the user’s IP address is visible both to the tracker and all related peers. So, has Joker successfully incorporated a torrent client into a web browser to enable live video streaming?

Last evening TF put that question to the people behind Joker who said they would answer “soon”. Hours later though and we’re still waiting so we’ll venture that the short answer is “no”.

Decentralized or centralized? That is the question..

The most obvious clues become evident when comparing the performance of popular and less popular torrents after they’ve been added to the Joker interface. The best seeded torrents not only tend to start immediately but also allow the user to quickly skip to later or earlier parts of the video. This suggests that the video content has been cached already and isn’t being pulled live and direct from peers in a torrent swarm.

Secondly, torrents with less seeds do not start instantly. We selected a relatively poorly seeded torrent of TPB AFK and had to wait for the Joker progress bar to wind its way to 100% before we could view the video. That took several minutes but then played super-smoothly, another indication that content is probably being cached.

To be absolutely sure we’d already hooked up Wireshark to our test PC in advance of initiating the TPB AFK download. If we were pulling content from a swarm we might expect to see the IP addresses of our fellow peers sending us data. However, in their place were recurring IP addresses from blocks operated by the same UK ISP hosting the Joker website.

Conclusion

Joker is a nice website that does what it promises extremely well and to be fair to its creators they weren’t the ones making the Popcorn Time analogies. However, as a free service Joker faces a dilemma.

By caching video itself the site is bound by the usual bandwidth costs associated with functionally similar sites such as YouTube. While Joker provides greater flexibility (users can order it to fetch whichever content they like) it still has to pump video directly to users after grabbing it from torrent swarms. This costs money and at some point someone is going to have to pay.

In contrast, other than running the software download portal and operating the APIs, Popcorn Time has no direct video-related bandwidth costs since the user’s connection is being utilized for transfers. The downside is that users’ IP addresses are visible to the outside world, a problem Joker users do not have.

Finally and to address the excited headlines, comparing Joker to Popcorn Time is premature. The site carries no colorful and easy to access indexes of movies which definitely makes it a lot less attractive to newcomers. That being said, this lack of content curation enhances Joker’s legal footing.

Overall, demand is reportedly high. The developers told TF last evening that they were “overloaded” and were working hard to fix issues. Currently the service appears stable. Only time will tell how that situation develops.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Their case involves former members of now-defunct file-sharing links forum Dancing Jesus. The site was taken down in 2011 following an investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security.

Two people were arrested by City of London Police, the owner of the site and the forum’s top uploader. Homeland Security assisted UK police by seizing a Dancing Jesus server hosted in the United States.

The trial, which began on October 6, took place at Newcastle Crown Court. One defendant, site owner and admin Kane Robinson of South Shields, had already pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music back in January 2014.

Richard Graham, the site’s alleged top uploader, went into the trial with a “not guilty” plea, but after evidence was presented in court earlier this week the Leicestershire man changed his plea to guilty.

“The guilty verdict confirms that posting illegal online links to music is a criminal offense which economically harms musicians and the labels that support them,” said David Wood, Director of BPI’s Copyright Protection Unit.

“Pre-release piracy, in particular, robs musicians of artistic control, leaving them with no say in when and how their music – which has taken blood, sweat and tears to produce – is released.

The case is significant in a number of ways, not least the scale of online infringement connected to the pair’s guilty plea. Add in the fact that Dancing Jesus was particularly well-known as a venue to obtain pre-release content and this becomes the most important UK music industry case since the failed 2010 prosecution of the infamous OiNK BitTorrent tracker.

Graham and Robinson will be sentenced under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Their fate will be determined by Judge Sherwin early next month.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

So, with a public anti-piracy awareness campaign under their belts, STEF and SMAIS embarked on a strategy successfully employed by copyright holders in the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and other European countries. The groups issued demands for local ISPs to block not only The Pirate Bay, but also Deildu.net, Iceland’s most popular private torrent tracker.

Modifications to the country’s Copyright Act in 2010 authorized injunctions against intermediaries, so the chances of success seemed good. However, this was Iceland, a country strongly associated with freedom of speech. Could protection of copyrights trump that?

“This action doesn’t go against freedom of expression as it aims to prevent copyright infringement and protect the rights and income of authors, artists and producers,” the rightsholders insisted.

Initial legal action against ISPs faced issues, with one blocking request rejected on a procedural matter. Another featuring four plaintiffs was reduced to three when in May this year the Supreme Court decided that only music group STEF had the rights to claim injunctive relief.

But despite the setbacks, this week the rightsholders achieved the ruling they had been hoping for. The Reykjavík District Court handed down an injunction to ISPs Vodafone and Hringdu forcing them to block several domains belonging to The Pirate Bay and Deildu.

STEF Director of Policy Gudrun Bjork Bjarnadóttir told local media that the decision of the Court is an important event that will smooth the way for much-needed additional blockades.

“We will never reach a final victory in the battle so it makes sense for people to realize that it’s likely that new sites will spring up. However, following similar actions abroad visitor numbers to such sites have declined significantly,” Bjarnadóttir said.

The domains to be blocked include thepiratebay.se, thepiratebay.sx and thepiratebay.org, plus deildu.net and deildu.com. Currently the injunction applies to just two ISPs and it’s unclear whether there will be an attempt at expansion, but in the meantime the effort is likely to be a symbolic one.

The block against The Pirate Bay will be circumvented almost immediately due to the wide range of reverse proxy sites available and Deildu has already taken evasive action of its own. Within hours the private tracker announced a brand new domain – Iceland.pm – one that isn’t listed in the court order.

ISP Hringdu says that the Court ruling runs counter to company policies.

“It is clear that [the ruling] is not in harmony with Hringdu’s policy regarding net freedom,” director Kristinn Pétursson told Vísir. “The company has placed great emphasis on the idea that our customers should have unrestricted access to the internet.”

Neither of the ISPs has yet indicated an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Yorke would like to see more money flowing to the artists and in an effort to accomplish this goal he has teamed up with BitTorrent Inc.

The San-Francisco company has experimented with artist bundles for a while and together with Yorke they have now launched their first paywalled torrent. After paying $6, fans can download Yorke’s “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” album via a protected torrent file.

“It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around,” Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich write in a joint statement.

“If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers,” they add.

In recent years BitTorrent Inc. has been working very hard to show that its technology can be used for more than “piracy” and today’s bundle is a prime example. After releasing various free samples from other artists, Yorke’s full album is definitely a breakthrough.

The paywall and other restrictions are not something traditional BitTorrent users are used to, but it’s a necessary “evil” to draw mainstream artists to the model.

BitTorrent Inc. emphasizes that the album itself is DRM-free but that the torrents do have copy protection. This means that people can’t easily share them with others who haven’t paid.

“BitTorrent Bundles features protected torrents, limiting the number of times a torrent can be downloaded. While Bundle content is DRM-free, torrents are protected with this new way of managing how often a Bundle is downloaded,” BitTorrent Inc. notes.

This works very much like private trackers, where only members can share files with each other. With the “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” torrent those who pay are a “member” and only they can share the file.

It will be interesting to see if other artists are also willing to join the experiment. A full album for $6 definitely sounds like a fair price and the artists get to keep most of the cash. BitTorrent Inc. says it currently gets 10% of the revenue for enabling the distribution.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, several unauthorized torrents without a paywall are also doing the rounds on various torrent sites. The good news is, however, that the paywalled version currently has more people sharing than the pirated one.

Those interested in Thom Yorke’s “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” can grab a copy here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Titled “Behind The Cyberlocker Door: A Report How Shadowy Cyberlockers Use Credit Card Companies to Make Millions,” the report attempts to detail the activities of some of the world’s most-visited hosting sites.

While it’s certainly an interesting read, the NetNames study provides a few surprises, not least the decision to include New Zealand-based cloud storage site Mega.co.nz. There can be no doubt that there are domains of dubious standing detailed in the report, but the inclusion of Mega stands out as especially odd.

Mega was without doubt the most-scrutinized file-hosting startup in history and as a result has had to comply fully with every detail of the law. And, unlike some of the other sites listed in the report, Mega isn’t hiding away behind shell companies and other obfuscation methods. It also complies fully with all takedown requests, to the point that it even took down its founder’s music, albeit following an erroneous request.

With these thoughts in mind, TorrentFreak alerted Mega to the report and asked how its inclusion amid the terminology used has been received at the company.

Grossly untrue and highly defamatory

“We consider the report grossly untrue and highly defamatory of Mega,” says Mega CEO Graham Gaylard.

“Mega is a privacy company that provides end-to-end encrypted cloud storage controlled by the customer. Mega totally refutes that it is a cyberlocker business as that term is defined and discussed in the report prepared by NetNames for the Digital Citizens Alliance.”

Gaylard also strongly refutes the implication in the report that as a “cyberlocker”, Mega is engaged in activities often associated with such sites.

“Mega is not a haven for piracy, does not distribute malware, and definitely does not engage in illegal activities,” Gaylard says. “Mega is running a legitimate business alongside other cloud storage providers in a highly competitive market.”

The Mega CEO told us that one of the perplexing things about the report is that none of the criteria set out by the report for “shadowy” sites is satisfied by Mega, yet the decision was still taken to include it.

Infringing content and best practices

One of the key issues is, of course, the existence of infringing content. All user-uploaded sites suffer from that problem, from YouTube to Facebook to Mega and thousands of sites in between. But, as Gaylard points out, it’s the way those sites handle the issue that counts.

“We are vigorous in complying with best practice legal take-down policies and do so very quickly. The reality though is that we receive a very low number of take-down requests because our aim is to have people use our services for privacy and security, not for sharing infringing content,” he explains.

“Mega acts very quickly to process any take-down requests in accordance with its Terms of Service and consistent with the requirements of the USA Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) process, the European Union Directive 2000/31/EC and New Zealand’s Copyright Act process. Mega operates with a very low rate of take-down requests; less than 0.1% of all files Mega stores.”

Affiliate schemes that encourage piracy

One of the other “rogue site” characteristics as outlined in the report is the existence of affiliate schemes designed to incentivize the uploading and sharing of infringing content. In respect of Mega, Gaylard rejects that assertion entirely.

“Mega’s affiliate program does not reward uploaders. There is no revenue sharing or credit for downloads or Pro purchases made by downloaders. The affiliate code cannot be embedded in a download link. It is designed to reward genuine referrers and the developers of apps who make our cloud storage platform more attractive,” he notes.

The PayPal factor

As detailed in many earlier reports (1,2,3), over the past few years PayPal has worked hard to seriously cut down on the business it conducts with companies in the file-sharing space.

Companies, Mega included, now have to obtain pre-approval from the payment processor in order to use its services. The suggestion in the report is that large “shadowy” sites aren’t able to use PayPal due to its strict acceptance criteria. Mega, however, has a good relationship with PayPal.

“Mega has been accepted by PayPal because we were able to show that we are a legitimate cloud storage site. Mega has a productive and respected relationship with PayPal, demonstrating the validity of Mega’s business,” Gaylard says.

Public apology and retraction – or else

Gaylard says that these are just some of the points that Mega finds unacceptable in the report. The CEO adds that at no point was the company contacted by NetNames or Digital Citizens Alliance for its input.

“It is unacceptable and disappointing that supposedly reputable organizations such as Digital Citizens and NetNames should see fit to attack Mega when it provides the user end to end encryption, security and privacy. They should be promoting efforts to make the Internet a safer and more trusted place. Protecting people’s privacy. That is Mega’s mission,” Gaylard says.

“We are requesting that Digital Citizens Alliance withdraw Mega from that report entirely and issue a public apology. If they do not then we will take further action,” he concludes.

TorrentFreak asked NetNames to comment on Mega’s displeasure and asked the company if it stands by its assertion that Mega is a “shadowy” cyberlocker. We received a response (although not directly to our questions) from David Price, NetNames’ head of piracy analysis.

“The NetNames report into cyberlocker operation is based on information taken from the websites of the thirty cyberlockers used for the research and our own investigation of this area, based on more than a decade of experience producing respected analysis exploring digital piracy and online distribution,” Price said.

That doesn’t sound like a retraction or an apology, so this developing dispute may have a way to go.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Even if all torrent sites were shut down today, Tribler users would still be able to find and add new content.

But the researchers want more. One of the key problems with BitTorrent is the lack of anonymity. Without a VPN or proxy all downloads can easily be traced back to an individual internet connection.

The Tribler team hopes to fix this problem with a built-in Tor network, routing all data through a series of peers. In essence, Tribler users then become their own Tor network helping each other to hide their IP-addresses through encrypted proxies.

“The Tribler anonymity feature aims to make strong encryption and authentication the Internet default,” Tribler leader Dr. Pouwelse tells TF.

For now the researchers have settled for three proxies between the senders of the data and the recipient. This minimizes the risk of being monitored by a rogue peer and significantly improves privacy.

“Adding three layers of proxies gives you more privacy. Three layers of protection make it difficult to trace you. Proxies no longer need to be fully trusted. A single bad proxy can not see exactly what is going on,” the Tribler team explains.

“The first proxy layer encrypts the data for you and each next proxy adds another layer of encryption. You are the only one who can decrypt these three layers correctly. Tribler uses three proxy layers to make sure bad proxies that are spying on people can do little damage.”

Today Tribler opens up its technology to the public for the first time. The Tor network is fully functional but for now it is limited to a 50 MB test file. This will allow the developers to make some improvements before the final release goes out next month.

There has been an increased interest in encryption technologies lately. The Tribler team invites interested developers to help them improve their work, which is available on Github.

“We hope all developers will unite inside a single project to defeat the forces that have destroyed the Internet essence. We really don’t need a hundred more single-person projects on ‘secure’ chat applications that still fully expose who you talk to,” Pouwelse says.

For users the Tor like security means an increase in bandwidth usage. After all, they themselves also become proxies who have to pass on the transfers of other users. According to the researchers this shouldn’t result in any slowdowns though, as long as people are willing to share.

“Tribler has always been for social and sharing people. Like private tracker communities with plenty of bandwidth to go around we think we can offer anonymity without slow downs, if we can incentivize people to leave their computers on overnight and donate,” Pouwelse says.

“People who share will have superior anonymous speeds,” he adds.

Those interested in testing Tribler’s anonymity feature can download the latest version. Bandwidth statistics are also available. Please bear in mind that only the test file can be transferred securely at the moment.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has closed dozens of smaller sites located in the Netherlands and the Federation Against Copyright Theft has been carrying out similar work in the UK.

FACT’s tactics of hunting down, identifying and then threatening torrent site operators have proven very successful in the past. The impact of having FACT’s representatives at the front door has resulted in the closure of many sites, while emailed threats have only added to the tally.

Yesterday came news of another closure, this time of TorrentShack, a long-standing and loved-by-many private tracker. The exact mechanism of FACT’s contacts with the site’s operator haven’t been made public, but it’s clear that the anti-piracy group has placed the site under a lot of pressure.

“It seems once again that FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) have gone after the small site rather than those that make thousands each and every month in profit,” the site’s operator announced over the weekend.

“I have been under investigation by FACT for some time it seems and to avoid being dragged through the courts and having huge legal fee’s I have to adhere to their demands.”

FACT’s usual demands involve closing the site and handing over the site’s domain, and in TorrentShack’s (TSH) case they have kept to their usual format.

“They have said that I need to hand them over the domain to this site and to cease my involvement with running such a site. If I comply then any and all charges against me will be dropped,” TSH’s admin explained.

It’s predicted that the TorrentShack.net domain will be handed over to FACT during the next few days. It’s possible a FACT ‘warning’ page will replace the site but many ‘seized’ domains simply lie dormant.

While the site’s users will no doubt be disappointed by the site’s closure, those concerned about FACT getting their hands on the site’s database can rest easy – the TSH admin has assured users that no such request has been made.

“In simple terms, the Domain is simply the URL you type in to visit the site. It has no connection with your accounts, your security. There is no reason fro anyone to worry,” TSH assures site users.

“It’s been a great run and I have really enjoyed what we have done here over the last few years. I want to thank everyone that has made it possible. I guess I proved that what they said ‘Couldn’t’ be done…. Actually ‘Could’ be done.”

OpenTrackers has further information on the site here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Earmarked for an August 15 U.S. release, Expendables 3 leaked in near DVD quality a full two weeks ahead. The timing and quality combined to make the leak one of the most prominent in recent years.

While the original sources of these leaks are nearly always shrouded in mystery, once made publicly available on sites like The Pirate Bay they are anyone’s for download.

Originally it was believed that Pirate Bay releaser Drarbg uploaded the first public torrent, but that was not the case. Flying under the radar a hugely less popular torrent (still only with a handful of seeds) actually preceded it by almost 20 minutes.

It’s certainly feasible that another release preceded even this one, but with torrents on sites other than Pirate Bay regularly deleted due to copyright complaints, it’s now too late for any certainty.

It’s also impossible to say how many people were in the chain after the leak and before the first public torrent upload, but numerous public sources (including RARBG themselves) are now pointing to postings on 4chan as indicating the start of events.

The thread is right here and obviously everything happened in public. The postings don’t specifically mention the title of the movie but a source close to the situation assures TF that the chat does indeed refer to The Expendables 3.

Less than two hours after his initial posting on July 15, ‘Anonymous’ was back on 4chan with an update.

“I am in contact with a release group that works with private trackers. They asked me for proof of what I had and I took pictures with a written timestamp of the disc in and out of the box,” he wrote.

“I dumped them into some special submission link they had and they will get back to me. I’m just waiting in a secured IRC room for them to get back to me once the staff takes a look.”

Precisely what happened after then is a mystery (as is the leaker’s apparent disregard for security by posting in public) but a source informs TF that whoever obtained the copy knew they had something hot – perhaps too hot.

“We know that the leak was back then, around July 15, but everyone was scared to leak it. Most private groups had it for more than 10 days, but again they were scared to leak it,” TF was told.

After the leaked copy was allegedly handed over July 15, the comments of ‘Anonymous’ as he returned to 4chan predicted the events of last Thursday.

“Keep an eye out for the leak. No telling how long this will take, but I’m sure it will make its way to public trackers due to the demand for it,” he wrote.

Interestingly, although initial demand for The Expendables 3 was brisk, downloads now sit at an estimated 500,000, and it’s currently less popular on file-sharing networks than “Divergent” which was released on the same day.

Update: Someone claiming to be the person who started the 4chan thread has contacted TF to say that the whole thing was started as a prank and no movie was leaked as a result.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The two main players on this front are FACT, the Hollywood-affiliated Federation Against Copyright Theft and PIPCU, the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Both have been very active recently, with the latter doing most of its work in the past 10 months or so.

While there are few big announcements from either group, a new UK government report now provides updated statistics from both. The numbers in the just-published IP Crime Highlight Report 2013/2014 show considerable activity, for FACT over the past 12 months and for PIPCU since September last year.

PIPCU

The headline figure from PIPCU indicates that the unit is currently investigating ‘IP Crime’ to the value of £28,869,991, which in the overall scheme of things doesn’t seem big by industry standards. Music sales alone were worth more than £1 billion in the UK during 2013 and it’s not unusual for the industry to claim piracy rates in excess of 90%.

Still, the police unit is not only about investigation, but also about disruption, and their aim to have the domains of infringing sites suspended has reportedly enjoyed some success. According to the new stats, since September 2013 PIPCU have had a hand in the suspension of 2,359 .co.uk domain names. It’s a significant number, no doubt, but the disruption one might expect from such broad action has certainly not been reflected in the press.

Other figures presented by the government relate to the execution of 15 search warrants. No further details have been provided but the action against a local streaming link site accounted for at least one of them.

The final piece of information from PIPCU relates to the current “follow the money” approach employed by anti-piracy groups worldwide. The unit claims to have suspended the ability of 19 websites to process payments, although no detail is given on the nature of the sites from where the processors backed out. PIPCU do work with PayPal, MasterCard and VISA, so it’s likely they’ll be somewhere in the chain.

FACT

Without doubt, FACT are the busiest ‘boots on the ground’ anti-piracy group in the UK and the most likely to trouble UK-based file-sharing site operators.

According to the report, in the past 12 months alone FACT has managed to close down 117 ‘pirate’ websites. No further details are provided but the group works on a number of levels, from scaring operators via email to physically arriving at their home addresses. When site operators have been brave enough to talk we have reported on a few instances here at TF, but in nothing like the numbers suggested in the report.

FACT also claim to have targeted people higher up the food chain in the past 12 months, after having a hand in the arrest of seven “alleged” release group members. The inclusion of the word ‘alleged’ suggests ongoing cases, but it’s certainly possible that FACT are referring to individuals arrested in the West Midlands last year.

In addition to having another 10 websites blocked by UK ISPs following action in the High Court, FACT secured the first ever UK conviction of an individual streaming live football matches over the Internet. The case involved the operators of a website called FreeLiveFooty, both of which were arrested in 2010 following complaints from the Premier League.

“FACT’s successes in the past year show the benefits of intelligence led, targeted actions against criminal websites and the people behind them,” FACT’s Eddy Leviten told TorrentFreak. “We also help to guide consumers to legitimate entertainment sources online, in cinemas and on TV.”

News-shy

While both PIPCU and FACT do make the occasional announcement on achievements, there is a tendency for them to work under the radar.

For example, while FACT has on occasion pressed the big publicity button, such as when they took the BBC along to the home of a file-sharing site operator, often the only reports to surface are the ones published here on TF with the assistance of FACT targets (for example 1,2,3,4,5)

PIPCU also tend not to shout too loudly or too often about their achievements, action against counterfeit domain names and other sundries aside. Again, word often reaches TF of attempted domain seizures or threatening letters way before the police make any announcement, if they ever do. Why they take this approach isn’t clear, but the fact that some attempts fail, such as recently with torrent index Torrentz, is certainly a motivator to keep things low-key.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

First the tracker was removed, then the torrents followed, and later the infamous torrent site canceled nearly all central servers after moving to the cloud. In addition, the site switched domain names on multiple occasions.

All these changes were carried out to make the site more resilient and less likely to be shut down by the authorities. This determination to escape the long arm of justice is deeply rooted in the site’s history, dating back to the raid eight years ago.

Most of the site’s current users are probably unaware that without a few essential keystrokes in the site’s early years, The Pirate Bay may have not been here today.

May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The policemen had instructions to shut down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

While the police were about to raid the datacenter, Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid and Fredrik got wind that something was up. In the months before the raid they were already being watched by private investigators day and night, but this time something was about to happen to their trackers.

At around 10am in the morning Gottfrid told Fredrik that there were police officers at their office, and asked him to get down to the co-location facility and get rid of the ‘incriminating evidence’, although none of it, whatever it was, was related to The Pirate Bay.

As Fredrik was leaving, he suddenly realized that the problems might be linked to their tracker. He therefore decided to make a full backup of the site, just in case.

When he later arrived at the co-location facility the concerns turned out to be justified. There were dozens of policemen floating around taking away dozens of servers, most of which belonged to clients unrelated to The Pirate Bay.

In the days that followed it became clear that Fredrik’s decision to start a backup of the site was probably the most pivotal moment in the site’s history. Because of this backup Fredrik and the rest of the Pirate Bay team managed to resurrect the site within three days.

The site’s operators were not impressed and renamed the site “The Police Bay” complete with a new logo shooting cannon balls at Hollywood. A few days later this logo was replaced by a Phoenix, a reference to the site rising from its digital ashes.

Instead of shutting it down the raid brought the site into the mainstream press, not least due to its amazing three-day resurrection. All this publicity resulted in a huge traffic spike for TPB, exactly the opposite effect Hollywood had hoped for.

Despite a criminal investigation leading to convictions for the site’s founders, The Pirate Bay kept growing and growing in the years that followed. The site’s assets, meanwhile, had been transferred to the Seychelles-based company Reservella.

Under new ownership several major technical changes occurred. In the fall of 2009 the infamous BitTorrent tracker was taken offline, turning The Pirate Bay into a torrent indexing site.

Early 2012 The Pirate Bay went even further when it decided to cease offering torrent files for well-seeded content. The site’s operators moved to magnet links instead, allowing them to save resources while making it easier for third-party sites to run proxies.

These proxies turned out to be much-needed, as The Pirate Bay is now the most broadly censored website on the Internet. In recent years ISPs in Denmark, Italy, UK, the Netherlands and elsewhere have been ordered by courts to block subscriber access to the BitTorrent site.

On its tenth anniversary last summer the Pirate Bay team released another option for its users to circumvent the increased censorship, the PirateBrowser. With this browser users in blocked countries can bypass ISP blockades without having to use a proxy.

Over the past year The Pirate Bay also encountered some domain name troubles. Fearing a domain seizure through the Swedish court the site moved from its .SE domain to Greenland’s .GL ccTLD. However, TPB wasn’t welcome there, a rejection that signaled the start of a domain hopping exercise via Iceland’s .IS to Sint Maarten’s .SX, to Ascension Island’s .AC, Peru’s .PE, and back via Guyana’s .GY to the good old .SE domain, where it resides again today.

Looking ahead The Pirate Bay plans to become even more indestructible, partially moving away from the web. The TPB team is working on a special BitTorrent-powered application, which lets users store and distribute The Pirate Bay and other websites on their own computers. Instead of bypassing external censors, this new tool will create its own P2P network through which sites can be accessed without restrictions.

This “p2p browser” should be able to keep The Pirate Bay operational, even if the site itself is pulled offline. There is currently no estimated release date set for this second project, but it will take a few more months of development at minimum.

And so The Pirate Bay is expected to live on and on. A few months ago the site turned ten years old and today it’s celebrating the raid anniversary, which it declared “Pirate Independence Day” back in 2008.

“Let today be the pirates independence day! Today we celebrate the victories we’ve had and the victories that will come. Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!,” the TPB team said at the time.

The site’s millions of regular visitors indeed kept on seeding. But remember, if there hadn’t been a recent backup back in 2006, things may have turned out quite differently.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.