Pirate Bay to be sold for $7.7 Million to Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X

Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X has announced that it has agreed to buy file-sharing service The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (approx. $7.7 million). The news was revealed by our colleagues at Techcrunch.com. The same company also entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new p2p technology.

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Last April, the founders of The Pirate Bay were sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $3.6 million for running the site. GGF wants The Pirate Bay to embrace a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. It's not clear yet what type of business model the company has in mind for the file-sharing service.

In a statement the people behind The Pirate Bay say: "The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the Internets - quite the opposite. Now we're fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It's win-win-win."

The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is supposedly going to help with projects "about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openness of the nets". In the meantime the communication from The Pirate Bay camp is pretty unclear as several members of the team behind it are contradicting each other in various interviews. To be continued...

Update: As it looks new, the Pirate Bay users have become the worst possible critics calling all kind of names to the team behind the site.