Pirate Bay Docked

Prominent file sharing site The Pirate Bay has been taken off-line following a Police raid in Nacka, Stockholm. As opposed to a dawn swoop on a Dotcom mansion, this time authorities reportedly targeted a data center built into the side of a mountain. Yes, these are strange times.

Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has claimed responsibility for the criminal complaint that led to the raid, which Torrentfreak suggests resulted in at least one arrest.

In an incredibly matter of fact statement refreshingly shorn of any ‘blow in the battle against piracy’ style rhetoric, police national coordinator for IP enforcement Paul Pintér said: “There has been a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm. This is in connection with violations of copyright law”.

Computers and servers were also seized in the raid, which also had an effect on other illegal content sharing sites such as the subtly named EZTV. Of course, modern piracy being what it is, another high profile piracy site immediately and rather casually made the Pirate Bay’s entire archive available on its site but it will be interesting to see if the active site will remain on-line.

In other torrent news, former piracy site FilesTube has been officially unblocked in the UK after reinventing itself as a licensed video aggregator. The BPI took the unprecedented step of voluntarily requesting that the block be removed before the case had to go to the High Court- quite a PR win given that one of the main motivations espoused around anti-piracy activity is that the aim is to make such services legitimate.