The crux is that nobody will ever have any details of what is actually stored on the servers, not even the most industrious of the copyright industry’s own private investigators.Īt the same time, many of the “pure” peer-to-peer services have had to filter their content and, therefore, move from potentially unrestricted openness to selective closure when they become commercialized. Hosting services like Rapidshare can, thanks to their lack of a central index, retain a high degree of freedom for users to share material. This has of course been done with varying degrees of success. Perhaps we will see The Pirate Bay germinating into one “free” version, heavily congested by advertising, and one more advertisement-free, “premium” version, like Spotify?Ĭommercialization of this kind has often been the case – both if we look at pure file-sharing services like Napster and so-called hosting sites such as Rapidshare, Zshare and Mediafire. Perhaps we will soon see texts by Will Self and Usher songs being distributed entirely freely, in exchange for the publicity and goodwill that such dispersion brings. Swedish artists and writers like Timbuktu and Unni Drougge have already allied themselves with the populist potential that the site clearly has. Perhaps we may see a veritable “MySpace Bay” in a few years’ time, where each download gives bonus points which you can use in the form of discounts or vouchers for movie downloads and other products. Despite the idealistic slogan ‘sharing is caring’ there is no predetermining essence in this particular venture that would deter such a development. So of course the site can be developed in the direction of becoming more sponsored and commercialized. The Pirate Bay has for a long while been financed by advertising and merchandise sales, for example. So-called “illegal” file sharing sites and services often have a latent commercial potential, right from the beginning.

In fact, it can be argued to be as much a product of capitalism as tabloid newspapers, pyramid schemes, and ring tones. (1) First of all, it shows that unrestricted file-sharing need not be antithetical to capitalism. This is a translation of my editorial published on Swedish debate site .Īs a PhD student writing my thesis on Swedish file-sharing, and with a general interest in digitization as a material and historical process, I instantly thought of two observations, rooted in media history: If it is true that the purchase will come to pass, it will be a very interesting development in terms of media history. On June 30th, 2009, The Pirate Bay announced that they are to sell their trademark and website to the Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X, with the proviso that said company can raise the 60 million SEK (€5,5 million) needed.

Turmoil the game thepiratebay