TorrentFreak

PRQ, the infamous ISP created by Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm of The Pirate Bay, has been nuked by PayPal. After a fruitful partnership lasting three years, PayPal decided to ruin their relationship with the so-called “bullet-proof” hoster by freezing the company’s funds for up to 180 days. On PayPal’s advice PRQ opened a second account to get by while the dispute was being sorted out, but then without warning PayPal seized those funds too.

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.

As the Swedish file-sharing scene recovered from the raids on the PRQ webhost last week, police were already queuing up their next target. After the takedown of Tankafetast on Monday, it now transpires that another site was raided on Thursday. Antipiratbyran informs TorrentFreak that five key sites have shut down during the last week and that further action against other sites should be expected.

Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij has won his appeal against the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok after it revoked his passport earlier this year. The authorities could not give a proper reason for the revocation to the Appeals Court, meaning that Neij is now free to travel from Laos where he currently resides.

Two targets of a police raid on PRQ this week have been revealed. Authorities still aren’t talking, but the boss of the hosting company says one of the seized servers belongs to Sweden’s former number two torrent site Tankafetast. The second domain of interest is Appbucket, which appears to be the same site targeted by the FBI during the summer. Meanwhile, the Swedish Pirate Party is basking in a huge spike in member signups as a direct result of the raids.

Police have raided the Swedish hosting company PRQ today, possibly looking for servers connected to copyright infringement. PRQ was founded by Pirate Bay co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij and is known to host or route many file-sharing sites. The target of the raid has not been confirmed by the authorities, but The Pirate Bay team informs TorrentFreak that they are no longer using PRQ’s services.

After a process lasting more than three years, a man from Sweden has finally been prosecuted for his role in the operations of Student Bay, a site dedicated to the sharing of textbooks. Despite prosecution attempts to link a Pirate Bay founder to the site, the 23-year-old is the only person in the spotlight. An apology requested by The Pirate Bay for wrongful accusations appears to have gone unfulfilled.