June 30, 2010 by Andy Russell
Piratbyran, the Swedish company which founded The Pirate Bay file-sharing site, has announced that it is to be disbanded. Ibi Kopimi Botani, one of the co-founders of Piratbyran passed away recently, and the size of the company means that it is no longer tenable for them to continue their operation.
The company is best known for founding the site The Pirate Bay, which provides file-sharing to online users for a range of applications including music and video. The firm, which translates as ‘Piracy Bureau’, has recently issued a statement from members suggesting that they don’t feel they are needed anymore.
Launched in 2003, Piratbyran was founded in protest against the Swedish anti-piracy bureau which operates to prevent the illegal sharing of copyrighted information and material on the web. Mr de Kaminski, a member of Piratbyran, has stated that he feels his company normalised file-sharing through his network, making it an acceptable way of gaining materials that people no longer feel ashamed about. He suggested that the act of file sharing is a normal, natural activity which is very common across the web.
The Pirate Bay site uses peer-to-peer technology (Bittorrent) to enable online users to connect to each other and download music, software and films illegally. In 2009, four members of The Pirate Bay network were fined for illegally making files under copyright available to the users of the site through file-sharing. They were also imprisoned for twelve months having been found guilty, and are due to appeal the sentence this year.
Per Stromback, the editor of Netopia, a discussion forum which is frequented by a number of creative companies in Sweden, and a spokesperson for the games industry in Sweden, stated: “Piratbyran have been very successful in creating excuses for something that can’t be justified. It’s fair to say that most illegal file-sharers feel they really should be paying.” He went on to speak favourably of the company, suggesting he would miss some of the conversations he had with the founders, adding: “They have an old bus which they drive around to all sorts of places. They have a fun anarchistic way of presenting themselves, and whilst we don’t share many of the same views, I’ve enjoyed some of their pranks.”
Related posts:
