The Pirate Bay moved to Swedish ccTLD .se
Following the recent seizure of enormous file repository, Megaupload, the folks behind The Pirate Bay are moving their fleet to the Viking shores.
The Pirate Bay has used .ORG as its TLD of choice for several years but apparently there is no safe harbor under US-based TLDs.
Sweden is known for its liberal laws and even its Pirate political party; so The Pirate Bay will be accessible at ThePirateBay.se from now on.
In an announcement, The Pirate Bay declares 2012 as “the year of the storm“:
The Pirate Bay will reach an age of 9 years. Experiencing raids, espionage and death threats, we’re still here. We’ve been through hell and back and it has made us tougher than ever.
[…] But what enrages us to our inner core is that the system, the empire, the governments, are still allowed to try to boss you and us around with one law crazier than the other. Do you think they will stop with SOPA/ACTA/PIPA? They will not. Because you won’t stop sharing those files. Because we will not stay down. Because no one can turn back time. Together, we are the iron that hardens with each strike.
In this year of the storm, the winners will build windmills and the losers will raise shelters. So flex your muscles, fellow pirates, and give power to us all! Build more sites! More nets! More protocols! Scream louder than ever and take it to the next level!
In the past, Demonoid – another repository of torrents that are copyright violations – moved from the .COM to the .ME – in order to avoid potential seizure of their domain by US authorities.
It is clear that 2012 will provide some interesting shift of global traffic to ccTLD destinations.
Too bad about megaupload.. Data stored online, legal or illegal, can disappear in an instant without warning due to United States government ruling. What’s worse is how they treated these people. You didn’t see YouTube executives thrown in jail or their assets frozen when they were accused of copyright infringement.