Major online pirate site busted
June 1, 2006 by Mike Wendland
Does anyone really think this will stop online piracy?
The Pirate Bay site that the entertainment industry has long complained was a major player in the illegal downloading of pirated films, software and music has been shut down.
A series of police raids in 10 locations across Stockholm yesterday netted three arrests and the confiscation of computers. Pirate Bay openly describes itself as the world’s largest search index for BitTorrent, the file swapping system used by most pirates to move large files acoss the Internet.
The site was still accessible today but only displayed an angry note promising to be “fully functional within a day or two.” Fan sites quoted organizers as saying they will reopen in another country, if necessary.
This may temporarily disrupt some file sharing of movies and music but not for long. There are so many sites that do this and so many small networks of file traders that use BT that the effect will be minimal.