Global Gaming Factory has said it will legitimize The Pirate Bay by installing a “torrent management system” that gives rights holders the ability to remove unauthorized content.
Doubts about GGF’s purchase of The Pirate Bay that surfaced last month appear to have been largely swept away. The company claims it has secured funding for the acquisition and that the deal is still on schedule; all that remains is to have the purchase approved by shareholders, who will vote on the matter next week. In order to help ensure their support, GGF management sent out a letter explaining its plan to turn the internet’s most notorious file-sharing site into a legitimate service.
GGF intends to install software that will allow copyright holders to either authorize files for distribution on the new Pirate Bay or remove them from the site entirely. How exactly the system will work is unknown but rights holders will be “compensated” every time an authorized file is downloaded. Furthermore, GGF said it would “pay any penalties that may arise,” although again, specifics regarding how these penalties would be incurred or paid weren’t revealed.
Naturally, there’s a risk that copyright holders could use the new system to simply remove everything from the site, stripping it of content and, ultimately, paying customers, but GGF management sees this as extremely unlikely. “The risk that rights holders will remove all content on The Pirate Bay at the date of acquisition is estimated as inexistent [sic] by GGF,” the company said. “GGF’s assessment after talks with the entertainment industry is that the majority of the content will remain on The Pirate Bay.”
If shareholders approve the deal, The Pirate Bay will officially hand over the keys to GGF on August 27. I don’t think it’s necessarily a done deal, however; GGF hasn’t yet secured any licensing agreements that will allow it to actually provide content, although it says it hopes to have deals with “most of the major movie studios and record labels” with a year. Even if all the other pieces fall into place, there’s still the very practical consideration of whether a site like The Pirate Bay will be able to attract paying customers. A lot of questions remain unanswered and I wouldn’t be surprised if shareholders are just a little bit antsy about giving this one the ol’ rubber stamp.
Source: TorrentFreak
