With millions of regular users per day, The Pirate Bay is arguably the most visited torrent site on the web.

TPB officially operates from the domain thepiratebay.org which has been in use for more than seventeen years now.

Just in case something happens to the original domain, the site also owns several alternatives. Until recently, this included prominent domains such as Piratebay.org and Thepiratebay.com.

Piratebay.org Sold For $50,000

These backup domains have been linked to the official Pirate Bay team for years. However, this summer the owner ‘forgot’ to renew them. As a result, they ended up at auctions where Piratebay.org sold for $50,000 and Thepiratebay.com brought in $35,150.

This money didn’t go to The Pirate Bay team, obviously, but to the professional ‘drop catch‘ service Dropcatch.com, which scooped them up.

These types of sales are not unusual. There’s a whole industry of traders who buy high traffic domains, which are usually monetized through ad feeds. This is exactly what happened to Thepiratebay.com.

That said, the $50,000 price tag of Piratebay.org was higher than usual. According to a domain expert who participated in the bidding, it’s not worth that much for regular brokers. That begged the question, who bought it, and what are the plans?

Pirate Bay Pictures

A few days after the sale the buyer appeared to uncover the ‘masterplan’. The domain was put up for sale again by an unknown entity called “PirateBay Pictures” who said they are crowdfunding a new film; The Torrent Man .

We were highlyy skeptical of this claim and asked the domain owner some questions, which remain unanswered today. As it turns out, the skepticism was warranted as the “Torrent Man” pitch disappeared recently. Instead, Piratebay.org now redirects to a TPB proxy.

A quick look at the Whois data shows that the domain wasn’t sold again, which makes sense, as the $2 million asking price was a bit high.

Recoup The Investment

It seems more likely that the whole “Torrent Man” announcement was simply a trick to generate more press attention, which we hinted at before. More backlinks raise the value of a domain name after all.

It’s possible that the redirect, which currently points to pirate-bay-proxy.org, will change again in the future. The goal will likely remain the same though, recoup the $50,000 investment.

At the time of writing, pirate-bay-proxy.org displays prominent popups for NordVPN. Those can be easily closed, after which it operates as a regular proxy, which loads another proxy (tpb.party) through an iframe.

The pirate-bay-proxy.org homepage itself is littered with keywords that are meant to draw search engine traffic. This also reveals that the person operating it isn’t really in tune with the true Pirate Bay attitude, as the page ends with the following statement…

“ Copyright ©2020 Pirate Bay .”

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The Pirate Bay is arguably the best known pirate site on the web.

The iconic pirate ship logo is notorious around the world and more than 17 years after it first appeared online, the site still attracts millions of visitors.

During its tumultuous history, The Pirate Bay has weathered many storms. The site was targeted in large scale police raids twice and was the subject of a criminal prosecution in Sweden that landed several of its co-founders in prison .

Pirate Bay’s Backup Domains

The site also faced several domain name issues. In 2012 it switched from its original ThePiratebay.org name to ThePiratebay.se , fearing that the former would be seized by US authorities. Later on, when the .se domain was threatened , it rotated across several other domains in search of a safe haven.

That safe haven turned out to be the original ThePiratebay.org domain from which it still operates today.

Over the years the Pirate Bay team had many ‘backup’ domains available, just in case something happened. That included various exotic TLDs but the site also owned Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com. We use the past tense because both domains expired recently.

The domains listed Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij as the registrant and until recently the same Swedish address was listed in Whois data. For reasons unknown, however, the registrant let both Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com expire.

This isn’t a problem for the torrent site really. The domains were never used as the site’s main address. ThePiratebay.com did forward to the original .org domain at one point, but that’s about it.

Piratebay.org Auctioned for $50,000

None of this means that the domains are not valuable to outsiders though. This became apparent in an auction yesterday, where Piratebay.org (without the the ) was sold for $50,000 to a bidder named ‘clvrfls’. The bid below ended up being the winning one.

The Piratebay.org domain failed to renew earlier this month after which the professional ‘ drop catch ‘ service Dropcatch.com scooped it up. They auctioned the domain off, which is a common practice, and it proved quite lucrative.

Domain trader and investor Raymond Hackney, who highlighted the auction at The Domains , tells us that the price itself is not unusual but for this particular domain, it seems on the high end.

“The price seems high for a traditional domain investor given the history of the name. Names sell for big money everyday due to a number of factors, sometimes it’s due to what some see as SEO factors like high domain authority and backlinks.”

This view is shared by domain trader David Marshall, who joined yesterday’s auction but stopped bidding after the price went above his valuation.

“I didn’t think it would go that high and don’t believe it’s worth this much,” Marshall tells us, adding that he planned to monetize the Piratebay.org through legitimate advertising feeds, as he does with many other piracy-related domains.

According to Marshall, auctions of high-quality Pirate Bay domains are very rare, as he waited for years for a chance like this. That may in part explain the high price.

How Will ThePiratebay.org be Used?

What the new owner will do with the domain is unclear. It has a substantial number of backlinks and there will be plenty of type-in traffic as well. This makes it well-suited to monetize with an advertising feed, but how much that will bring in is uncertain.

For now, visitors to the site simply see a standard parked page message, indicating that something is “coming soon.”

The new owner could also run a Pirate Bay proxy on the domain. This can be easily monetized as well and may attract a lot of traffic. However, that opens the door to all sorts of legal problems and could also get the domain banned from high-quality advertising feeds.

The bidders who lost yesterday’s auction will get another chance soon. ThePiratebay.com is expected to drop later this week and is listed at a pending delete auction , and ThePiratebay.net and Piratebay.net will drop in a few days as well.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The piracy ecosystem is more structured than most people assume. While anyone can upload a file online, the most popular content is distributed publicly by a small number of uploaders.

This was also the case at ETTV, which started out as a TV-torrent distribution group on the public torrent site ExtraTorrent.

After its original home was shut down , ETTV decided to launch its own website , allowing a select group of uploaders to share content there. These types of distribution groups feed the majority of all pirated videos to the masses. However, they are not the source.

Many Torrent Groups Rely on The Scene

Groups like ETTV often get their content from the top of the piracy pyramid, also known as The Scene. While there is no active cooperation between Scene groups and torrent uploaders, those who know where to look can get access to Scene content. That is, until a major bust changes the game.

As reported in great detail over the past days, a criminal investigation by the US authorities shook up The Scene . Three alleged members with ties to the group SPARKS were arrested and raids across the world toppled dozens of topsites where Scene content was shared.

This was not just a major blow to The Scene. It affects the entire piracy ecosystem, as became apparent from a recent decision made by ETTV.

ETTV just moved to a new domain at ETTVcentral.com as its previous one was heavily downranked and blocked by Google. However, what’s even more significant is that the site now allows all members to upload torrents , instead of just the small group of uploaders that it previously worked with.

SPARKS Was ETTV’s Prime Source

Torrents from known uploaders will now be listed as ‘verified’ but, other than that, everyone can add content. While this change was already in the planning, the SPARKS bust sped up the process. As it turns out, SPARKS was ETTV’s prime source.

“All ETTV torrents were coming from them,” ETTV administrator ‘sidekickbob’ tells us. “With exception of a couple of movies here and there, we don’t upload anything anymore at the moment because we’re not getting any new content.”

This is an example of how the investigation into a few Scene members affected the entire piracy ecosystem, including Jane Doe in Sydney, who suddenly couldn’t download her favorite TV-shows.

“There was a significant reduction in available content after the bust. We need ‘independent’ uploaders to fill in the blanks. If they do a good job, they will get a more prominent appearance on the ETTV site by being upgraded to ‘Uploader’,” sidekickbob says.

The Future Remains Uncertain

It’s not as if piracy has come to a complete standstill. Those who look hard enough can still find pretty much all they need. However, ETTV was impacted severely, according to sidekickbob, who mentions that they are mostly looking for consistent TV show uploaders.

By opening the site up to the public ETTV also hopes to increase content variety. On the other side, it will also require more moderation as spammers and scammers are always lurking.

ETTV has had quite a lot of trouble over the past few months. The site’s main operator disappeared without a trace last December after which sidekickbob stepped up. However, several domains and resources were lost. For now, the site is hanging in there but its future remains uncertain.

“After losing four domains, the image host, and being blocked on Google, it’s a wonder we’re still alive. This latest domain change is the last effort to remain alive, and I think we will, but I will know for sure by the end of the year,” sidekickbob says.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

For many seasoned BitTorrent users, 1337x.to is a familiar name. The site has been around for more than a decade and is generally known for its lively community.

Over the years 1337x has steadily climbed through the ranks. It is currently the third most-visited torrent site , trailing only behind The Pirate Bay and YTS.mx.

1337x Bans YTS Uploads

While there is generally not much competition between public torrent sites, 1337x’s staff has taken a big decision that directly impacts YTS. Without warning, the site decided to ban all YTS torrents, including the site’s upload bot.

The YTS bot is connected to YTS.mx and adds hundreds of new movie torrents every week. While many torrent users appreciate the constant stream of fresh content, the reputation of YTS has been severely damaged due to its operator sharing user details with movie studios.

These private details, including IP and email addresses, were taken from the YTS database which by itself has nothing to do with 1337x. However, the 1337x staff characterized this as a ‘snitch’ move and no longer wants to be associated with anything related to its rival.

“In light of the admin/sysop/owner giving up user data, I put banning them to a staff vote which returned a unanimous decision,” 1337x admin ‘Blackjesus’ informs TorrentFreak.

Movie Companies Sued YTS Users

YTS data-sharing practices have already resulted in several lawsuits against YTS users after the site itself previously signed a settlement agreement with movie studios .

Initially, it was not 100% certain that the data was being willingly shared but an article we published this week left no doubt . That prompted 1337x to take action, a decision that wasn’t taken lightly.

“We had considered banning them a few months back when it was first made public that they were potentially compromised and TF published several articles about them being sued but they magically continued to operate. Your latest article about them giving up user data was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The ban doesn’t affect YTS.mx directly, as they are still able to publish torrents on their own site. However, the releases on other sites act as a promotional tool as well, so in the long run, it can certainly have an impact.

EZTV Uploads Are Banned Too

While the initial ban only affected ‘YTS’ uploads and the ‘YTSAGx’ bot, it directly resulted in the ban of another popular account as well; EZTV.

EZTV.io hijacked the original EZTV group years ago and in 2015 started promoting the new YTS site after the official YTS group shut down. It wasn’t entirely clear if the two were connected but when the EZTV bot started uploading YTS releases to 1337x yesterday the site’s staff knew enough.

“After banning the YTS bot account the EZTV bot account started uploading YTS torrents. This is the confirmation we needed that EZTV and YTS are linked. We always suspected it. We know YTS and EZTV are not the original groups/sites,” Blackjesus tells us.

“We allowed them to upload on 1337x because people liked their small encodes and apart from stealing the YTS name they did not seem to be doing anything malicious. We never fully trusted them and that’s the reason that neither account was ever promoted to VIP.”

TorrentFreak reached out to YTS for a comment on the ban, but we have yet to hear back.

More Bans Coming?

People who search for YTS or EZTV on 1337x won’t see any new torrents and that’s not going to change anytime soon. At the time of writing, all older uploads from these accounts remain available.

The 1337x team are also discussing their concerns with other torrent site admins, who may follow the site’s decision.

“I suspect more bans to follow shortly,” Blackjesus says, noting that most people he spoke with agree on the matter.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The Pirate Bay has been both an early adopter and a pioneer when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

More than seven years ago the torrent site added support for Bitcoin donations , with Litecoin and Monero following later.

The Pirate Bay was also the first large website to start mining cryptocurrency by using the computing resources of is visitors. This was a controversial move, but one that was followed by many other sites .

Bitcoin Scared Copyright Holders

The fact that cryptocurrency transactions don’t involve any banks or other authorities was a scary thought for rightsholders. Early on, the music industry’s anti-piracy group RIAA alerted the US Government to this emerging threat.

“In April 2013, the site started accepting donations from the public by Bitcoin, a digital currency, which operates using peer-to-peer technology,” the RIAA informed the US Government.

“There are no central authority or banks involved which makes it very difficult to seize or trace Bitcoin funds. In May 2013, the site also started accepting Litecoin, another peer-to-peer based internet currency.”

The RIAA was right to state that Bitcoin does indeed make it harder to seize funds. That said, tracing Pirate Bay donations isn’t all that hard. In fact, all transactions are transparent and visible to the public at large, allowing anyone to see how much ‘money’ users are tipping the site.

Bitcoin Donations as Lunch Money, and More

Late April, when The Pirate Bay came back after over a month of downtime, it started using a new Bitcoin address so we decided to take another look at this revenue stream. As we’ve signaled in the past , cryptocurrency donations alone certainly can’t keep the site afloat.

The first transaction to the new Bitcoin address , a sizeable 0.007 BTC, came in late April. Since then, 23 donations followed, totaling 0.042 BTC. That equates to roughly $450 the current exchange rate.

This is less than $5 per day. Even if we added the Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash donations, which are much lower, the $5 barrier would not be reached.

In other words, Bitcoin donations are not the threat copyright holders envisioned early on. As we have shown earlier, it’s still nothing more than lunch money. Apparently, millions of Pirate Bay users are not that generous.

Still, TPB does outperform the competition when it comes to donations. For example, 1337x, which also prominently lists a Bitcoin address on its site, earned roughly $0.50 per day over the past several months.

That said, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may still be instrumental in keeping pirate sites afloat. Donations aside, they allow site owners to pay for servers and hardware relatively anonymously. This makes it possible to counter the follow-the-money approach many anti-piracy groups use.

—

^{Fetured image: Steve Garfield ( cc 2.0 )}

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.