Every time The Pirate Bay suffers a few minutes for downtime, thousands of people start to worry that something awful has happened to their beloved site. Luckily, this is usually not the case.

The fear that The Pirate Bay may not return probably stems from the fact that it was raided nearly 5 years ago, and all the legal troubles that followed. However, aside from the three days of forced downtime in 2006 thepiratebay.org has never run into any significant trouble.

When the site’s not responding someone probably tripped over a cable, they’re working on software upgrades, replacing hardware or facing another technical difficulty.

Oh yeah, and EZTV is down too, probably the same cable.

The best advise for worried users is to relax, take a deep breath, and try to visit the site again in a few hours or check out one of the alternatives.

Do you have a conspiracy theory? Please comment below.

Update: Technical difficulties indeed (power failure), TPB will be back in a few hours (days, weeks).

Update: Problems will be fixed but there’s currently no ETA.

Update: And they’re back… sort of…

Update (May 12, 2011): Comcast users who have trouble accessing The Pirate Bay, look here.

Update (June 30, 2011):The Pirate Bay is Down again.

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