An old pirate logo, the silhouette of a caravel sailing on rough waves, full sails depicting the Piratbyrån crest as a noble crest, and an old pirate logo with his name written in large Gothic letters at the bottom, were embedded in the retina of a whole. cyber user generation. The Pirate Bay is Internet history. Of the most sensitive and contradictory, it’s true – a section that it shares with platforms like Megaupload and even Silk Road, or more discussed; but still history. and from which cannot be skipped while browsing the net.

Let’s remember. Less than two decades ago, in 2003, Piratbyrån, a Swedish community advocating for free information exchange, launched a website for sharing files using the BitTorrent protocol. The name he chose was already a statement of intent: The Pirate Bay.

The idea was pretty simple. Its supporters wanted a website where users could: share any file without having to worry about copyright. They did not start from scratch. Previously, other platforms had successfully tested the same groundwork that focused on audio documents, like Napster, which had to cease operations in 2001 amid an intense judicial storm due to copyright infringement.

A story fit for pirates

The Pirate Bay has been a remarkable successor in its own way. When it comes to popularity quota. And from a complicated forensic standpoint. It became independent of Piratbyrån in 2004 and embarked on a path that brought it international fame – a process in which Spain, meanwhile, played a key role – and placed itself in the middle of a legal whirlwind. Evidence of its accelerating effect is when Swedish police broke into his home just two years later, in 2006. data center decided to confiscate most of the equipment. The coup served to close the page for a few days.

Platform he survived the blow In the following years, initiatives that helped strengthen the international reputation of the web, among other things, became stronger or more powerful. In 2007, its creators even launched a campaign to raise money. scout Bit Torrent protected from the control of the authorities. For such a project they looked to a 27th-century pirate bunker: Sealand, a former military platform located in international waters that declared decades ago as a sovereign and independent state with its own royal family.

At the beginning of 2008, authorities dealt another blow to the platform, accusing its main creators of copyright infringement. They were soon sentenced to one year in prison and paid 30 million crowns, or about 2.7 million euros. Most prison sentences were to be commuted in 2010 after an appeal that nevertheless led to the fine being increased.

The history of the platform since then on top of the great pirates. In 2007, emails were leaked revealing a company’s plans to launch a DDoS attack. scout This allowed him to take control of Reservella and in December 2014 he faced a new raid that also resulted in the temporary shutdown of the internet. All of this has been flavored with setbacks and regional blockades reaching Spain, judicial decisions and moves to limit their visibility.

The latest data from SimilarWeb shows that the bulk of its traffic originates from the US, followed by Canada and Austria, while Sweden and South Africa share the rest of the TOP 4, with no percentages reaching. 3%

Peter Sunde.

If there are names that share the focus of attention with The Pirate Bay platform itself, it is its co-founders. Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter SundeFaced with severe legal penalties dictated by the courts for infringing copyright in 2009, and sanctions that they appealed until they faced rejection by the Swedish Supreme Court in 2012.

What happened to them?

Perhaps the most prominent in the media in recent years, Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, was arrested in Sweden in mid-2014 to serve an eight-month prison sentence for copyright infringement. Sunde operates in the digital arena before and after. He founded Flattr, a social micro-donation company in 2010, and in 2016 launched Flattr Plus, a tool that allows a user to block ads while funding their most visited media.

“I want the Internet to be a sustainable, free and open place for everyone, regardless of social class, country or origin,” Sunde said. websites that visit more users.

Gottfrid Svartholm.

He’s made headlines in recent years for his participation in special shows about The Pirate Bay’s history, his controversial statements, and even his Finnish sentence in 2021 that concluded he helped distribute copyrighted copies between 2005 and 2009. Sunde went so far as to describe it as “Kafkaesque”:It is strange being on a 16-year case in another country.”

Inside Twitter profile He introduces himself as one of the creators of Njalla, Flattr, IPredator, Konsthack and The Pirate Bay. When he grows up, he declares himself a socialist, vegetarian, Finnish and Norwegian. “The French call me Le troll rêveur”, joke.

Another of the key figures behind The Pirate Bay Gottfrid Svarthlom Warg, aka Anakata. As he stated in 2015, his story is more complex than Sunde’s. Guardian: In 2012, following his 2011 conviction, Svarthlom was arrested in Cambodia, where he was sent to Sweden to face his sentence. His legal journey did not end here. He faced piracy and fraud charges again in 2013 and will later be extradited first to Denmark and then to Sweden. Result: Has not left prison so far: until 2015.

His mother said, “What Gottfried wants to do more than anything right now is to get back to his development work within IT. In June, just a few months before Gottfrid Svartholm was released. Not much has been revealed about his activities since then.

Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde in 2009.

Third name in pirate history, Fredrik Neij. Authorities arrested him at the Thai border while trying to cross Laos in late 2014. Fredrik, also known as TiAMO, was released from prison in June 2015. returning home with the kids. My family aside, I was looking forward to catching ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Archer’. And to finish off my liver’s well-deserved vacation with a big beer!”

In the fall of 2019, Torrent Freak published that Swedish police have decided to abandon a criminal investigation into The Pirate Bay, in which Niej is the main suspect. He had always denied any recent interference on the web, and agents – always according to information from Torrent Freak – could find no strong evidence to the contrary.

Fridrik Niej said, “It took them a long time to realize that I was no longer running The Pirate Bay. Now that the investigation is closed, I am looking forward to receiving compensation for unnecessarily holding all my computer hardware for four years and ten months.” Commented on Torrent Freak in October 2019.

The 2019 verdict that imposed prison sentences and the order to pay SEK 30 million collectively did not only affect Warg, Sunde and Neij. Another hero was a businessman. Carl Lundstromcompany Rix Telecom provided service to The Pirate Bay. However, their roles are different from those of the founders. “I have no affiliation with Lundström, we have very different political ideals. He also has no real connection to the TPB. It bothers me a lot that he’s a part of the cause,” Sunde told The Arts Technica in 2012.

A tale of punishments, arrests in remote countries, imprisonment, and even attempts to take over platforms in the middle of the ocean that make up one of the most exciting chronicles in the history of the internet: technology. And it’s legal.

Images: Flattr (Flickr)Wikipedia (a Y 2)