Later this year, The Pirate Bay will celebrate its 15th anniversary.
That’s quite an achievement for any website, but for a pirate site in particular, considering the mounting legal pressures.
The Pirate Bay is not an ordinary torrent site though. It has a long and rich history that, unfortunately, appears to be fading.
Up until a few years ago TPB frequently replaced its iconic pirate ship logo to send a message. These ‘doodles’ were pieces of art in their own right and have long been documented on a dedicated page.
However, when we checked this page a few days ago we noticed that the doodles only go back to 2014. This means that dozens of earlier pieces are missing, which is a crying shame. So, for the sake of history, we tracked down whatever we could and have published our findings here.
Below is our overview of TPB’s doodles in chronological order. Many of the titles are the ones TPB used. The list doesn’t include ‘ads’ or artist promos, which sometimes were just videos, but otherwise, it should be relatively complete.
—
The first doodle we’re aware of, celebrating the pirated release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
The Pirate Bay renamed itself to The Pear Bay when Apple x86 OS leaked. The logo linked to a search which led visitors directly to it.
The Pirate Bay wished all its visitors a Merry Christmas. As far as we know, this doodle hasn’t been reused in recent years.
Another pirate game release, Quake 4 this time. It’s clear what some of the TPB people were up to in their spare time.
The Pirate Bay crew auctioned a night of partying to the highest bidder on eBay. “Since we have a lot of bandwidth usage and low salaries for working on our site, we’ve decided to go prostitutes on you and sell ourselves for money,” they wrote.
Three days after The Pirate Bay was raided for the first time, the site returned with their cannons aimed at Hollywood.
With The Pirate Bay raid still dominating the news and political agenda, the site’s operator added another message. “Like the phoenix bird, The Pirate Bay will always rise again.”
The Piratebay openly supported the ‘war’ against Ladonia, a micronation located in the south of Sweden. Yet another political statement.
Pirate Bay promoting the release of the documentary Steal This Film featuring its co-founders Brokep and Anakata, directed by Jamie King.
The Pirate Bay crew had a party but didn’t bother to clean up. Instead, they put a photo of the aftermath on the frontpage.
A pirate site teaming up with the street fashion company “WeSC”? While brands shun these links nowadays, it was all possible ten years ago.
Good pirates talk like pirates. The Pirate Bay honored the yearly Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Perhaps one of the most ambitious plans. The Pirate Bay raised money to buy Sealand and form their own state. That never happened, the money was reportedly spent on trees instead.
TPB promoting the OscarTorrents.com website where archivists were collecting pirated links to the latest Oscar-nominated movies.
Pirate Bay moves to North Korea on April 1st, causing a lot of confusion as well as some outrage.
Following the success of Oscartorrents, the Swedes from The Pirate Bay now promote a similar initiative for the Eurovision song contest.
Every self-respecting website has its own merchandise store. The Pirate Bay had Kopimi clothing..
When the Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End leaked online, TPB made a fitting doodle linking to pirated copies.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leaked online, and Pirate Bay’s logo leaked as well.
The Pirate Bay celebrates the release of the first illegal CAM version of “The Simpsons Movie” with a new logo and t-shirt design.
The internal emails of anti-piracy outfit MediaDefender went public, revealing that they were indeed behind the video site MiiVi, and more…
TPB praising its own achievement of becoming a global icon. “We won the ‘global icon’ award from the copy lobby!”
The Pirate Bay posted its version of a job application.
When the European Parliament coalition Greens EFA launched a pro-filesharing campaign named “I Wouldn’t Steal,” Pirate Bay showed their support.
“10 million peers. 1 million torrents. 2.5 million registered users. 100 blog entries. Jubilee!”
The Pirate Bay shows off its romantic side.
The Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy start their journey throughout Europe, that will reach its climax at the art festival Manifesta.
The Pirate Bay keeps its arch-nemesis IFPI updated on the site’s whereabouts.
Hollywood buys police officers, according to The Pirate Bay, which is embroiled in a legal battle in Sweden.
The Pirate Bay celebrates the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij turned thirty. “All your NES are belong to him…”
Two years after the Pirate Bay raid, the notorious torrent site declares May 31 “Pirate Independence Day.” “Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!”
The Pirate Bay renamed the site into “The Pirate Bat“ and put up a new logo that links to a search for “The Dark Knight”.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked the Swedish Minister of Justice for “assistance” to remove Olympic torrents from TPB. The site was not impressed.
A few days later TPB asks its users to send their love to Beatrice Ask, the Swedish Minister of Justice at the time.
When Microsoft announced Global Anti-Piracy Day, The Pirate Bay blamed Bill Gates.
Pirate Bay’s tracker served 25 million concurrent peers, which is more than the entire populations of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark combined.
While the TPB-crew wasn’t certain that it was the right date (the tenth anniversary was in August), they celebrated anyway.
Ending 2008 with a call to action. “2009 turns out to be the year of surveillance. We need to fight that!”
Leading up to the TPB-trial, the site reminds people that MPAA lawyer Monique Wadsted previously represented the Church of Scientology in a copyright case.
The legendary King Kong defense.
Pirate Bay announced that they settled their differences with Warner Bros. The largest BitTorrent tracker sold out to Hollywood, on April 1st.
An important art institution is born, according to TPB. The Embassy of Piracy.
Swedish artist Montt Mardié thought that The Pirate Bay and its following could use an anthem, so he decided to write one.
TPB reminded its visitors to vote in the EU election.
TPB transformed into The Persian Bay and asked users to help out Iran. “Get your tunnelz goin!”
Inspired by the French football legend Cantona, TPB calls in its users to ban Paypal after it kicked out Wikileaks.
Pirate Bay’s sysop decided to put his Christmas wishlist on the frontpage. “Freedom for all information!”
At a time where several new laws were being drafted to restrict people’s freedoms, TPB joined the Blackout for Hungary.
More protest.
The Pirate Bay reuses an old doodle on April first. “TPB will use the tools from eBay to make a better rating system for torrents. Then TPB will divide eBay up into smaller companies and sell to the highest bidders. We see no use for an auction site since most stuff is available for free.”
The Pirate Bay launched a new survey in collaboration with the Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University. As part of a sociology study, they hoped to find out more about people’s motivations to share.
In a slightly edited version of Winston Churchill’s “this was their finest hour” speech, replacing Nazi-Germany with MAFIAA, The Pirate Bay team declares war on Internet censorship advocates.
The Pirate Bay turns eight years old. This time it’s in September. “One world one love!””
The Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation succeeds in their quest to force two ISPs to block the famous torrent site. The next day TPB adds a new domain to bypass the blockade.
The Pirate Bay promotes Mafiaafire, an unblocking too that helps users to access blocked sites.
TPB launched The Promo Bay, an initiative to help artists expose their work to the world through the site’s frontpage. We won’t publish all promo’s here, just the first one below.
The first promo is none other than best selling author Paulo Coelho, who’s a file-sharing enthusiast and a supporter of The Pirate Bay.
Sweden’s Supreme Court announced that it would not grant an appeal in the Pirate Bay case. This means that the prison sentences and millions of dollars in fines previously handed out to the four defendants remained in place.
TPB removed all popular torrent files and made the switch to magnet links. This was needed to make the site future proof, the team announced.
The Pirate Bay runs a promo for its own forum, Suprbay.
TPB memo on April 1st: “Political power in Athens, Greece, today signed an agreement with representatives for The Pirate Bay (TPB) about exclusive usage of the Greek airspace at 8000-9000ft.”
With the track “Sharing is Caring”, Dan Bull tried to break into the UK and international singles charts with the help of a free Internet and BitTorrent. Not without success.
The censorship button doodle was reused when The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK.
The Pirate Bay renamed itself The Hydra Bay today, linking it to PirateReverse.info, an information site that was dedicated to helping ‘blocked people’ to access TPB. The operator of this site was later arrested.
TPB joins the widespread demonstrations against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
In a 478 to 39 vote, the European Parliament decided to reject ACTA.
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde submitted an emotional pardon plea to the Swedish authorities, hoping to avoid his prison sentence.
The TPB crew created another doodle for their friends at the International Olympic Committee, promoting their bi-annual gathering.
Time flies. But at least it’s September again.
The Pirate Bay is already looking forward to its tenth anniversary, which they will celebrate in August…
From this day, The Pirate Bay will serve its users from several cloud hosting providers scattered around the world.
TPB backs efforts to prevent UK student Richard O’Dwyer from being extradited to the United States. Whether it helped or not, the extradition was stopped.
TPB encouraged its users to sent cards, letters, and gifts to co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, who was in prison at the time.
TPB-AFK, the documentary about The Pirate Bay and its founders, was released. The film follows the lives of the three Pirate Bay founders during their trials in Sweden.
The Pirate Bay moves the site to North Korea. For real. Or?
After its failed experiment in North Korea, The Pirate Bay has set course to the land of the free, the United States of America.
The Pirate Bay promotes a charity project.
The 10 year anniversary is coming, and TPB is hosting a massive party!
The Pirate Bay celebrates its 10th anniversary, in August.
Facing legal uncertainty, The Pirate Bay moves to a .PE domain name, the fifth domain is 2013.
No books? More than 100,000 signatures on a petition to improve the prison circumstances of Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm, appear to have had an effect.
TPB encouraged its users to write to the site’s imprisoned co-founders. This doodle reappeared several times.
The Pirate Bay reappears after more than a month of downtime, following a raid on the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof datacenter built into a mountain complex.
The Pirate Bay adds several new domain names. A new and improved hydra was born, although it didn’t last very long.
Raid? What raid? The Pirate Bay denies that they were critically hit by the police raid a few months earlier.
