After being temporarily disconnected by its previous Germany-based bandwidth provider CB3ROB.net, Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, says that “we got tired of Hollywood’s cat-and-mouse game with The Pirate Bay and decided to offer the site bandwidth.”
Yesterday Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay fell victim to a injunction ordered by a district court judge in Hamburg, Germany against the site’s Germany-based bandwidth provider, CB3ROB, and its owner, Sven Olaf Kamphuis. The injunction demanded that they disconnect The Pirate Bay or face massive fines of up to €250,000 ($317,475 USD) for each instance of infringement or, if this cannot be enforced, up to two years imprisonment.
The injunction was requested by the MPAA which, after winning a conviction against the site for facilitation of copyright infringement last April, has ratcheted up its assault by targeting the ISPs that provide it bandwidth.
The Pirate Bay insisted the downtime was only temporary, and true to its word, it’s already back online thanks to the help of a natural ally – the Swedish Pirate Party.
“We got tired of Hollywood’s cat-and-mouse game with The Pirate Bay and decided to offer the bandwidth,” says Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party. “It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity.”
The offer careful avoids the sticky issue of torrent trackers, which are hosted in “other places.” The Pirate Party will only deliver bandwidth to the home page and search engine function.
“Pirate Bay is a search engine, and as such it is not responsible for the results,” adds Falkvinge.
He chastises other politicians and political parties for not being held accountable while it stands alone, and uses its own resources to defend the country’s information security and fundamental freedom of expression.
“We are now the Pirate Bay’s ISP,” says Falkvinge in a call to arms.
The two form a natural alliance, especially being that anger over The Pirate Bay trial was largely responsible for the enormous surge in the Pirate Party’s membership, culminating in its win of 2 seats in the EU Parliament last June.
Falkvinge argues that Hollywood’s attempts to censor The Pirate Bay from the Internet is really an attempt to “silence one of today’s most important opinion makers in matters of civil liberties and rights on the web” and that “it is nothing less than political censorship, and something that any democratic-minded person must reject.”
As for The Pirate Bay, it’s responded in it’s usual mocking style, broken english and all.
PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN
LOL!
AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.
TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.
TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003
So now that The Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party have joined forces so to speak, it’ll be quite interesting to see how the MPAA fights an entity with political muscle of its own.
Stay tuned.
Related Stories
- “Avast ye scurvy file sharers!”: Interview with Swedish Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge
- Swedish Pirate Party Agrees to Host WikiLeaks Servers
- Swedish Pirate Party now offers totally anonymous file-sharing and downloads
- Pirate Party falls short of Swedish election goals, blames faulty procedures
- Swedish Pirate Party Wins 2 Seats in EU Parliament
Hey Drew: do you know why the Pirate Bay wasn’t dismantled after they lost the case more than one year ago?
Because it’s still appealing the case. It’s certain to go all the way to the country’s High Court.
The issue on the copyrights for music and movies have been out there for a long time. The more MPAA and RIAA try to catch, actually the more it will mushroom…hahahaha…beat that.
Yeah, truly agree with Chris. The Pirates will be here for a long long time. Long live the Pirates !
Cheers and keep up the good work…
We love you guys.
@omnimoeish : Yeah…China is a bigger pirates’ bay, only that they are not as bolt as TPB or ISOHunt. Wait till the Chinese and the Indians are link hand in hand to be come pirates…that’s where the whole world will “idolized” Pirates.
The almighty pirate ship sails on, fuck the MPAA and the RIAA
Yeah I know, now they are even using that cat language that’s all over the place!
They should just set up in China and be done with it. Ideally they would set up in Antarctica since no one can enforce their laws there, but I get the sneaking suspicion they wouldn’t have very good bandwidth.
LMAO!!!!!!!!
Looks like things have come full circle. Wasn’t TPB invented by the Swedish Pirate Party?
“Wasn’t TPB invented by the Swedish Pirate Party?”
Nope. TPB was actually created by a separate entity. The Pirate Party in Sweden has been suspected of being the same as TPB, but that’s not the case. It was started by a concerned citizen when copyright laws started taking dramatic twists and turns not in citizens favour. It was some person’s home page initially. Suddenly, when TPB went on trial, the party rocketed not only into the mainstream eyes in Sweden, but got two elected members (after that treaty was signed). I think the founder was initially shocked when, one day, he had some 200 members, then, the next day, he had, like, over 50,000 members.
But yes, although some people keep mistakenly saying TPB and PiratePartiet are one in the same, they were two completely different entities. In fact, during one election, one of the founding members said he was voting green instead.
aaaaaarrrrrrgggggggggg!!!