The Pirate Bay quietly turned 18 this year. The site survived several shutdown attempts and remains online. Nonetheless, one of the lawyers who fought The Pirate Bay in court says that the lawsuits and raids were worth it. Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde disagrees and believes that the torrent site can’t be stopped by rightsholders.
This year, The Pirate Bay officially reached adulthood, which is quite an achievement considering the immense legal pressure it has faced over the years.
The site was launched in 2003 under the wings of the now-disbanded pro-culture organization “Piratbyrån”, which is Swedish for Bureau of Piracy.
The group was formed by political activists and hackers in the same year. By then, many of the members had already launched other web projects challenging political, moral, and power structures. The Pirate Bay fitted this category and became a synonym for file-sharing in the following years.
The site remains online today but it’s not without scars. Swedish police tried to shut the site down twice, raiding dozens of servers. This ultimate goal failed but local authorities did prosecute the site’s three co-founders, who all served time in prison for their involvement.
This week the Swedish news site M3 ran a piece on TPB, bringing together some key players from the Pirate Bay trial. On one side there’s entertainment industry lawyer Monique Wadsted, who represented Hollywood, and Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde chimed in as well.
No Regrets
The piece doesn’t go deep into detail but it shows that the entertainment industry lawyer doesn’t regret going after the site and its founders, despite the mixed result. When Wadsted was asked whether it was worth the time and money, she replied with “Absolutely!”
“Even though it was the American film companies that paid for my work, that work benefited all the authors and copyright holders. This is a very important but often forgotten aspect,” Wadsted told M3.
Reading between the lines it’s clear that Wadsted hasn’t developed any sympathy for the pirate movement over the years. While companies such as Spotify and Netflix have publicly admitted that piracy was seen as both competition and inspiration, the lawyer doesn’t believe TPB should get much credit.
“It is a cultivated myth that we would not have any streaming services for music, film and TV series if Pirate Bay did not exist. Those who claim it do not understand how technology development works. For example, it was not a pirate movement that forced the development of smartphones,” Wadsted noted.
That last comment is a bit confusing as streaming services were around before smartphones. When Spotify and Netflix launched, smartphones were not a thing yet, and the iPhone had yet to launch.
That said, The Pirate Bay can’t be credited for all technological revolutions but many people believe that piracy has helped to speed up the development of legal services. Spotify reportedly built its first content library with pirated music, and Napster’s rise motivated the music industry to team up with iTunes.
Paving The Way
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde also believes that file-sharing paved the way for legal streaming services.
“File-sharing has definitely helped the rise of services like Spotify and Netflix,” Sunde told M3, noting that this wasn’t what the Pirate Bay team envisioned. Instead, they wanted to move the power back from large companies to individual artists.
Today, creators arguably have more control, but the entertainment industry is still dominated by major media companies. With the rise of legal options, piracy is less of an issue in the Western world, but it remains very relevant elsewhere.
“I constantly meet people all over the world who tell me how important it has been (and is) for them to have access to materials. People who otherwise could not have the profession they have or who have learned the language and culture,” Sunde said.
The fight to ‘free’ culture came at a steep price for Pirate Bay’s former spokesman, who distanced himself from the site many years ago. Following the trial, he was sentenced to an 8-month prison sentence of which five were served.
Stopping The Pirate Bay?
After more than two decades have passed The Pirate Bay still remains the go-to pirate site for many people. This also means that efforts to stop it will continue.
Wadsted highlights that a lot of progress has already been made. Site-blocking efforts make the site harder to reach in many countries, and advertising blocklists make it more difficult for the current operators to monetize it. And with a lack of revenue, some site operators will eventually choose to abandon ship.
For now, however, The Pirate Bay remains online and Peter Sunde doesn’t expect that the copyright lobby can bring it to its knees. “Pirate Bay has a life of its own and can not be stopped,” he said.
Speaking with TorrentFreak Sunde clarifies that the site may eventually go away. He previously argued that shutting it down may be for the best. However, it won’t be outsiders that take it down.
“The only way for it to die is if people running it grow tired and try to kill it off. There’s no power from the movie or tech companies that can affect that,” Sunde tells us.
It’s impossible to predict The Pirate Bay’s future but history has indeed shown that it’s quite resilient. That said, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the site is pushed further into the dark web during the years to come.