TorrentFreak

The organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level domain is facing court action after refusing to disable or seize two domains operated by The Pirate Bay. The Internet Infrastructure Foundation, the body that administers the .SE TLD and engages in projects to better the Internet, now faces a court showdown. The prosecution office is claiming that the foundation is guilty of assisting those who assist others to engage in copyright infringement.

The Government of Antigua will soon start accepting bids for their WTO authorized pirate site, to punish the United States for refusing to lift a trade blockade. The new service will offer the public access to pirated movies, music and software without paying U.S. copyright holders. A source close to the Antigua Government has suggested The Pirate Bay as an excellent partner, and the world’s largest file-sharing site says it would love to get involved.

Last week The Pirate Bay began accepting BitCoin donations and it’s been a successful move so far. In just seven days the site has received 174 donations via BitCoin with a dollar value of $2,063. Keep that up for a year and BitCoin exchange rates aside, the site could be adding around $107,000 to its coffers. Adding to the options to donate anonymously, The Pirate Bay is now supporting a second cypto-currency called LiteCoin.

Swedish authorities have filed a motion at the District Court of Stockholm on behalf of the entertainment industries, demanding the seizure of two Pirate Bay domain names. In addition to the Swedish-based .se domain the motion also includes the new Icelandic .is TLD. In a rapid response, The Pirate Bay has just switched to a fresh domain, ThePirateBay.sx, registered in the northeastern Caribbean island of Sint Maarten.

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was visited in prison last week by police questioning him as part of a new criminal investigation into The Pirate Bay. The case is said to involve several publishing houses as well as Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån. According to information received by TorrentFreak the authorities are focusing on events from 2011 and 2012, when Gottfrid was no longer working on the BitTorrent site.

Yesterday The Pirate Bay moved to a new domain, Thepiratebay.is. A few hours after the switch TPB’s SSL certificate was revoked, showing an ominous red warning screen to those who browse the site over https. “Secure Connection Failed. An error occurred during a connection to thepiratebay.is. Peer’s Certificate has been revoked.” Some wondered whether this [...]

After The Pirate Bay’s new Greenland-based domains were suspended earlier this month, the world’s largest file-sharing site has found a safe haven in Iceland. From now on TPB can be reached via ThePirateBay.is without the imminent threat of another domain suspension. The Icelandic registry informs TorrentFreak that they will not take action against the domain unless a court order requires them to do so.