Sadly for GGF, none of the headlines in the last year have turned out to be good ones for the company. It has been followed by almost constant controversy.

Now, for the second time in just over a year, GGF faces bankruptcy. In common with last year’s close escape when a former employee requested court action against the company for unpaid debts, history is repeating itself.

A pair of companies, Kennicott AB and Hercora Trading Technology, say they are collectively owed 1.5 million kronor ($220,000). The amounts, 906,200 kronor and 567,600 kronor respectively, were loaned to GGF in August 2008 but the companies are yet to be repaid.

In an application to the district court the companies demand that GGF “is immediately placed in bankruptcy.”

According to a report, owner Hans Pandeya already has liabilities of more than 400,000 kronor ($58,800) registered with the bailiff and today Global Gaming Factory has recorded liabilities of 450,000 kronor ($66,200). The company has filed no financial reports for 2009.

In filings, Pandeya places much of the blame for the current position on the failure to acquire The Pirate Bay last year.

In 2009, GGF was kicked off Swedish stock market Aktietorget following several serious violations which solicited comments that the company had a casual approach to disclosure requirements which misled the market.

But despite all the setbacks and serious lack of finances, Hans Pandeya continues to pursue his dream of owning a torrent site.

In August this year he approached Demonoid with a buyout offer, which was rejected.

Then in September, Winnipeg-based law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP put in offers to acquire several of the largest BitTorrent sites on behalf of an unnamed client. All roads pointed back to Pandeya. These offers were also rejected.

TorrentFreak has learned that just two weeks ago Pandeya made an offer to one of the most prominent torrent sites. No prizes for guessing what the response was.

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

The deadline to transfer the money passed as September turned into October, seemingly putting an end to the deal after several turbulent and controversial months.

Then at the end of October we reported that Pirate Bay owners Reservella, helped along by ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, were in talks with four potential buyers. Two of the possible buyers remained anonymous, but the other two were named – Swedish online gaming company GamersGate and the persistent GGF, which obtained nearly $280,000 in loans the previous month, ostensibly to continue chasing the purchase.

After the bankruptcy petition against it was withdrawn 2 weeks ago, GGF has now issued its third quarter interim report where it reports that its turnover in the first 9 months of the year has increased by around 270% to nearly $1.37m.

Commenting on the closure of The Pirate Bay’s tracker, GGF says the move affects the opportunities to monetize the site, as the file-transfers are no longer co-ordinated by TPB. However, it is not ruling out moving again to acquire the site.

“No individual, group or organization can control or be held responsible for the new trackers [DHT,PEX] which hampers the ability to reach a unified decision to charge for file sharing. Therefore the potential revenue from The Pirate Bay in the case of a takeover decreases,” the company reports. [Read: So we'll offer much less money...]

“GGF has concluded agreements with partners for delivery of advanced technology and has also improved the technical solution to be included in a successful acquisition. GGF has also made progress in its work with the acquisition of rights,” they say, adding that there is the possibility of “short-term” success for the company to acquire The Pirate Bay.

Either that, or further publicity to encourage a similar increase in turnover in 2010.

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

Harry Maloney has over 30 years experience in the industry and was previously employed as a chairman of Apex Entertanment Group and commercial director for BMG Records representing the likes of Annie Lennox, Take That and Elvis Presley. He is currently a director and council member of the BPI, the outfit which currently controls around 90% of recorded music in Britain and is currently campaigning for the disconnection of alleged file-sharers from the Internet. He previously owned his own label, Mazur.

Goran Andersson also has 30 years experience in the entertainment industries. He is currently the VP Content and European Region at Catch Media which he co-owns and where Harry Maloney (above) is a director and advisor. Andersson also works in business affairs at X5 Music AB and serves on the Board of Trustees at the New York-based ARChive of Contemporary Music, which is claimed to be the world’s largest music archive covering 20 million songs. He has also owned Modern World Music for the last 26 years.

The third person being put forward is Janne Lundqvist. GGF previously took on Lundqvist as Music Business Relations Manager. He began his music industry career with CBS back in 1975. In 1983 he became Head of Marketing at Virgin Music and in 1987 became CEO of Greatest Hits Entertainment in 1997. Lundqvist was CEO at Vitaminic between 2000-2002 before setting us his own company.

The three new board members will be needed to help GGF with legalizing The Pirate Bay through licensing deals. Earlier, GGF CEO Hans Pandeya told TorrentFreak that his company had started discussions with several of the major entertainment industry companies, and told us that the responses have been very positive. First things first though. The most urgent matter for GGF is to actually transfer the money to the owners of The Pirate Bay, so they actually become owners of the domain.

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

Despite Global Gaming Factory’s investors getting cold feet and aborting their financial support for the purchase of the world’s largest tracker, on Thursday the company’s shareholders (well, at least the four who attended the meeting) all agreed that the purchase could go ahead.

Less optimistically, Peerialism, GGF’s technology partner, said there would be no business between the companies.

Where the money will come from in the end is anyone’s guess, but CEO Hans Pandeya says he will cover the purchase with his own shares, but right now, it appears he doesn’t even have cash to cover his business or personal debts.

Recently, former GGF board member Johan Sellström said that Pandeya owed him in excess of 6 million kronor ($840,000) and said he was suing to get the money back.

Now, according to a new report, last night Pandeya suffered a serious humiliation, one that he’ll find difficult to put down to the “smear campaign” he said had been orchestrated against him recently.

Having failed to pay a debt of some 780,000 kronor ($110,400) owed to the Swedish tax authorities, yesterday enforcement officers ran out of patience and swooped to seize his assets.

Last night a tow truck took away Pandeya’s car and, as you can see from the screenshot from the Aftonbladet site, what appears to be a pretty nice motorcycle.

We haven’t got a comment from Hans Pandeya, but if we did he would probably say, “Everything is fine and the purchase of Pirate Bay is going ahead as planned.”

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

Just a few short months ago, Ernesto and I were toiling for hours and hours every day, neglecting our regular jobs (yes, we’re only part-timers on TorrentFreak and FreakBits) to ensure that our readers had every conceivable detail of the Spectrial, every nugget of information from every source we could find.

No translation was too much trouble, no mountain of RSS too time consuming and no live feed in a foreign language too daunting to decrypt, in order for us to bring the facts of this important case to the world.

On the whole, people were happy that we did so. But things have changed.

The outcome of the Spectrial was open – the defendants could’ve walked away free men, or, as we were all soon to learn, be punished far beyond what any of us expected. Nevertheless, throughout there was hope for a victory – a triumph for the file-sharing masses, a beacon of encouragement for the millions of BitTorrent users.

Because of these hopes and optimism, no-one minded the wall to wall blanket coverage and few complained that every movement of the trial was relayed in high detail.

But now I sense that even amongst the faithful, the hope has gone. People are resigned to the likely reality that rather than the proposed purchase by Global Gaming Factory signaling a new dawn for the site, it really signals the end of The Pirate Bay. Why would anyone from the community enthusiastically read about that?

Rather than being greeted as the savior of the world’s largest tracker, GGF are increasingly seen as an irrelevance. If you believe all the hype, they will soon buy and “legalize” the site, part the oceans, turn lead into gold, feed the users and the music and movie industries, and line their shareholders’ pockets, all with the BitTorrent equivalent of five loaves and two fishes.

Unfortunately for GGF, on the whole the BitTorrent community either doesn’t believe them or in increasingly large numbers, simply couldn’t give a damn.

Whatever GGF does with The Pirate Bay is open to speculation (god, please, no more you say…) but let’s face it – it aint gonna be The Pirate Bay that we know any longer. If anything it will be a largely unrecognizable site whose owners are in bed with the entertainment industries – the very people that have been trying to kill the site for all these years. The same opposition that, on the whole, has united the masses in support for The Pirate Bay.

No longer will people be able to go to the GGF Bay to download yesterday’s TV show or the latest cam of a Hollywood movie. No more will people be able to download the frankly mind-boggling array of other media indexed by the world’s largest tracker or just about any song they fancy – i’ll stake my (ever dwindling) pension on it. Things will have to change, drastically, and that’s the last thing the current users want.

And this is why I believe people have lost interest. Whatever GGF have up their wizard’s sleeve and no matter the magic promised to spurt forth from Hans Pandeya’s wand after the 27th, we aren’t talking about The Pirate Bay any more, merely its domain name. We certainly aren’t talking about The Pirate Bay mentality and definitely not its spirit.

No Gottfrid, no Fredrik, no Peter. No fun publicity stunts.

No flipping the bird to the **AAs – everyone has to be on their best behavior now. Forget anarchy – stand in line nicely and do as you’re told, a lot of money rests on the success of this project and there must be order for the shareholders. Things have to make financial sense now, with all the fun that entails.

The only thing that will remain are the legal threats, and I can’t imagine GGF handling those in the traditional Pirate Bay way – can you?

But yesterday, when I started writing this little opinion piece, something happened. Yet another Pirate Bay story broke – the Swedish authorities had effectively shut down the site. And guess what? Interest in The Pirate Bay peaked again, many of the reader comments expressed those familiar warm feelings towards the site and indeed, towards news about the site.

Momentarily the proposed sale to GGF was forgotten, with the majority of onlookers as enthusiastic as ever. Once again there was unity. But sadly, it’s unlikely to last, because its highly probable that the next piece we write about The Pirate Bay will be about the sale and as explained, most people don’t want to know about it.

So, when the inevitable happens and, as TorrentFreak, we have little choice but to grit our teeth and cover what is happening with the sale, spare a thought for us. We read dozens of these articles every day so that you don’t have to.

Normal service will be resumed around here as soon as possible – just don’t expect anything like normality if GGF acquires The Pirate Bay.

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

The interest has been absolutely unprecedented. Issues that niche sites like TorrentFreak have covered for years are now suddenly mainstream fodder, the public’s interest peaking along with their interest in real-life participation in the file-sharing phenomenon. The existence of The Pirate Bay has played a huge part in this new awareness but, as is often the case, it became a victim of its own success. No amount of bravado and no amount of public support would enable the world’s biggest file-sharing site to continue the work indefinitely – at least not in its current format.

A few P2P sites have previously tried to gain legitimacy or avoid legal action by “going legal” to a greater or lesser extent, but nothing really compares to the revolutionary plan put forward by GGF for The Pirate Bay.

Due to the mass press coverage, almost everyone has heard about the audacious and wildly ambitious plan to keep the site going with (hopefully) all of the torrents still on board, to allow people to carry on sharing while paying them to do so, selling off excess bandwidth to ISPs and paying the rights holders. And taking responsibility for any copyright claims that may come along. And selling Pirate Bay branded merchandise including vodka and baby accessories. And, of course, making a profit.

We’re continually informed by GGF CEO Hans Pandeya that the multitude of problems that have made the press almost daily are part of a conspiracy against him, and that people need not worry since all the funding is in place. The purchase of the world’s biggest tracker will go ahead as planned he says, providing the GGF shareholders agree.

But what about the current users of the site, the people who know the site best and have its future close to heart? You’ve read the stories, unencrypted the rumors and experienced the drama. So, regardless of if you’d like it go ahead or not, or whether you’d just like the whole thing to just go away, what do you really think of the deal’s chances?

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

“I don’t think there’s going to be any money raised with GGF’s current (lack of) plans,” Rosso told TorrentFreak, adding that he, his partners and the investors had all been misinformed.

Responding to these public comments, Pandeya said that Rosso’s departure didn’t mean much and while he agreed that Rosso must’ve been unhappy over “something” he now says he doesn’t know what that is.

Despite not having the ability to find out the thoughts of someone who worked for him and is ever-present on the end of a telephone, Hans Pandeya is today absolutely confident that the purchase of The Pirate Bay will go ahead.

“There are those who since day one wanted to ruin this deal,” he said. “They find it difficult to understand that the service will be lawful, therefore they are spreading rumors.”

So what is the position today according to Mr Pandeya and GGF?

“The Board of the Global Gaming Factory X AB (GGF) announces that the acquisition of The Pirate Bay will be completed August 27, 2009,” the company said in a very confident-sounding statement.

But what about the investment that Wayne Rosso said he doubted would become available?

“A group of investors are prepared to inject 30 million [SEK] relating to the cash portion of the purchase price of The Pirate Bay at the date of acquisition. The company has also established its legalization plan and will execute it at the date of acquisition,” says GGF.

Precise details on the “legalization plan” will be made available to the shareholders in a couple of weeks.

After apparently traveling all around Europe and meeting with Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music and EMI, Pandeya says they are in “final negotiations” with a “global player” on implementing some sort of “file-sharing agreement” which GGF claims will serve as a model for the entertainment industry.

“The Pirate Bay is back. We look forward to a successful completion of the acquisition of The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s top 100 sites, and its listing on the stock market,” said GGF’s CEO.

Announcing plans to financially exploit The Pirate Bay’s brand, Pandeya said GGF has started discussions with various potential partners.

Additionally, he’s so confident that the TPB brand is a winner, the company is considering a proposal to change its name from Global Gaming Factory X – to The Pirate Bay.

Stay tuned for further news over the next four weeks which will likely report that the deal has been called off, then put back on, then called off again, ad nauseam.

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