Earn Money The Pirate Bay Way!

The new owners of The Pirate Bay have an interesting plan to attract and keep users: They're going to offer people money to use the service.

It was revealed yesterday that The Pirate Bay, the most notorious file-sharing website on the internet, had been bought out by Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X AB for $7.8 million. Global Gaming Factory CEO Hans Pandeya said his plan to make the site legitimate required a "new business model" which would satisfy copyright legalities and ensure content creators and providers were paid for their work. The obvious problem facing Pandeya is that the idea of paying for digital content is anathema for the vast majority of Pirate Bay users.

What's the plan, then? Create a system that's even more attractive than free, he told the BBC. "We are going to set up a system where the file-sharer actually makes money," Pandeya said. He intends to pay Pirate Bay users to be part of a massive peer-to-peer file sharing network that will distribute content legally while helping reduce strain on internet service providers.

"More than half of all internet traffic is file sharing and P2P [peer-to-peer] traffic, and buying Pirate Bay gives us one of the biggest sources of traffic. We can then use this massive network of file-sharers to help [internet service providers] reduce overload," he said. "Let's say a popular song comes out. Rather than a million downloads from a site - which would cause a considerable strain on that ISP - we can take that song and put it out on P2P."

"The copyright holder still gets paid, the users still get their file, the ISP doesn't have a million people all grabbing a file and - for the users who share that song - a payment for putting that file on the P2P network," he explained.

The revenues necessary to pay file sharers and content providers could be made from ISPs who pay the new Pirate Bay to help them cope with overload, Pandeya said. He claimed his company could reduce costs at overloaded ISPs by 90 percent. "We're talking about next-gen file sharing so you can create revenue from storage and internet traffic optimization," he said.

But he also acknowledged that not everyone would be willing to accept his claims at face value. "This technology is new," he admitted. "For now, we're outlining our intentions and asking users to have faith."

Thanks to The Shade for the tip.

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So you have to buy the file, then you get a fraction of the cost per share? Thats pretty sweet, jump on a popular song and you could get rich.

So... I won't be paid for my swashbuckling and pillaging adventures?

I have a feeling that this system will be abused considerably. From what I've read, it looks as if the person who uploads it first will get all the dough.

So it's basically like saying "First," only you get paid to do it.

If the companies agree and are getting paid for their goods then I see no reason to dislike this... or maybe I'm just reading it wrongly?

So...is there actual pirating? And I mean like sailing about singing jaunty sea shanties, delightfully raiding british merchants to their humerous fright and bewliderment shout "Aha!" alot, wearing eyepatches, having parrots, and not involving the internet at all because those are lame people who are not pirates and steal things off the internet because they need something to distract them from their small dicks.

From what I read, people will also have to pay to USE Piratebay in the first place, and I can't see many people doing that.

Plus, we're not talking about a lot of money here. You wouldn't be able to live off it, actually I think you'd barely even make 25% of what you paid for it.

Making a decent amount of money online is just not possible. I would know, being unemployed and loving my PC to bits, I've looked everywhere. Though, if anyone does know of any way to make money online... heh... my PM box is rather empty.

But yeah, I don't see much money being made out of this.

That's actually quite a brilliant way to go about it. Definitely a lot better than having to download everything from the site. I could see this really helping a lot of multiplayer games, where mods and other user created content often require long download times before you can even enter a server.

What an interesting concept. And of course, if copyright holders aren't forthcoming, the company will still have the same Pirate Bay defense: that no actual torrent file or anything of the like is actually hosted on the Pirate Bay's site. If I were the people the MPAA claims to represent, I'd certainly be more willing to get paid at least something than spend lots of money pissing off the young people of Sweden and turning the country with the lax copyright laws against me.

HardRockSamurai:
I have a feeling that this system will be abused considerably. From what I've read, it looks as if the person who uploads it first will get all the dough.

So it's basically like saying "First," only you get paid to do it.

I think it won't necessarily be like this.

The first guy sends it to a few people, they send it to a few people, who send it to a few people, etc.

It's not like 100,000 people get it from the first guy, a few of them do, and then it exponentially goes down the line.

From how it sounds, this is incredible, and I can't wait to set up a linux fileserver that I never need to reboot, designed specifically for hosting this stuff.

It sounds like maybe a few people are going to get alot from this... but it is more likely that a group will abuse this system.

Tbh this is what needs to be done to combat illegal P2P. The media market shouldn't fight it, they need to accept it and use it as a weapon to further enhance the way we can purchase and receive goods.

I'm all for it. In fact, I just got a brand new modem with plenty of upstream bandwidth. I'll have it seed 24/7 :D

Guys, this is what we've all been dreaming about!! Lets support them in this new distribution model!

Maybe the industry is finally ready to test this new model.

Huh?...

*Puts on pirate outfit*

Come on ye landlubbers! Let her sails fly once more! We're back in business, AAARRRRGGGH!

needausername:
So... I won't be paid for my swashbuckling and pillaging adventures?

As long as the seas you plunder are virtual, you should be fine.

Alternatively, you could actually sail to the PB headquarters and pillage them to earn some money. Irony!

Grayl:
From what I read, people will also have to pay to USE Piratebay in the first place, and I can't see many people doing that.

Plus, we're not talking about a lot of money here. You wouldn't be able to live off it, actually I think you'd barely even make 25% of what you paid for it.

Making a decent amount of money online is just not possible. I would know, being unemployed and loving my PC to bits, I've looked everywhere. Though, if anyone does know of any way to make money online... heh... my PM box is rather empty.

But yeah, I don't see much money being made out of this.

I dunno I make a living off the internet. You might just be doing it wrong.

SirSchmoopy:

Grayl:
From what I read, people will also have to pay to USE Piratebay in the first place, and I can't see many people doing that.

Plus, we're not talking about a lot of money here. You wouldn't be able to live off it, actually I think you'd barely even make 25% of what you paid for it.

Making a decent amount of money online is just not possible. I would know, being unemployed and loving my PC to bits, I've looked everywhere. Though, if anyone does know of any way to make money online... heh... my PM box is rather empty.

But yeah, I don't see much money being made out of this.

I dunno I make a living off the internet. You might just be doing it wrong.

But aren't you actually employed by thesis media(or whatever it's called)? So wouldn't you be making money off of the company :P

Where is the money coming from? If it is from the end user then this is what was done to Napster, taking free stolen music and making people pay for it. The ISP's make you pay for bandwidth and have been putting caps on how much you can use so you could end up paying more than you would earn for the bandwidth you use. This just seem like an anti-piracy measure to me.

Some of the money could also come from advertising one the site (it will still be immensely popular) but how are they going to pay say $10 for a game download that way? If a couple of thousand people download it you're looking at bankruptcy.
And if people have to pay to use the pirate bay most people will just go back to steam.

Unless the company that bought TBP keeps the format exactly the same, they won't have very much traffic after the sale is finalized.

I doubt this will work, it just exposes itself to all of the angry companies and their DRM claims.

People are always saying 21st century copyright laws need to be updated to co-exist with file sharing. This seems to be a step in the right direction.

So... basically they're trying to turn into Akamai?

One person pays to download, then skips over to Mininova and hosts it.
I can see Pirate Bay becoming the target of ire eventually.

Sounds like bandwidth communism to me. The ISPs get less strain, but the cost is spread to the P2P people. Businesses don't get as much bandwidth cost, but as soon as they put their product into the P2P networks, it gets around.

It sounds great, but I doubt many people will use it.

wonderful, this stops people from just NOT paying to use the p2p they already have how?

Oh. My. GAWD!

Now, I didn't see this coming. But I should've. Those smarmy cunts, using human greed as a business model. It's ingenious and horrifyingly evil at the same time. "Here, download this song, WE PAY YOU!" Who doesn't like the sound of that?

There is two ways I can imagine how this will work. Either this will be a subscription option for a monthly fee, if you upload, you get a few bucks off of every single full copy you seed back. Or, it will be a free to use system and you get "credits" for uploading, only redeemable in the site's store to buy t-shirts and shit like that.

Either way, it's a fancy pyramid-scheme all over again. I imagine the money you get from uploading will be so little as in not worth doing it. Like those retarded "Get paid for looking at ads online" sites, like cashfiesta and such.

Bleh, I'm hating this already...

The thing is..50% of the bandwidth is not pirateers..it's the frickin YouTubers and HULUS and whatever else video streaming sites are out there.That is what is sucking up the bandwidth.

heliosa:

But aren't you actually employed by thesis media(or whatever it's called)? So wouldn't you be making money off of the company :P

I make cartoons and put them on the internet. Isn't that making money off the internet?

Also this system while in a step in the right direction, will fail.

I'm honestly not exactly sure how this would end up ...'working'

I don't see the agreement from the recording industry to this business model. I doubt RIAA will agree, as RIAA sees the content as the 'good' not the distribution method.

I also see that the shares are in a trading halt for suspected insider trading.

These pirates are laughing all the way to the bank...

Lock up your daughters, the pirates are coming.

Money for P2P... Crafty if I do say so myself!