In 2003, the Pirate Bay website was introduced by some hackers and activists with the objective of bringing file-sharing to a huge mass. Now, the Pirate Bay Turns 15 Years Old. Within this one decade and a half journey, it has served more than a million of the users across the globe. The achievement is big and the struggle is rewarding when compared to the legal complexities that it has gone through over the years.
Though it has become 15 years old this year, still, the exact date of this noble idea is hiding in the clouds. Even the founders of the site are a bit confused about the original date. The August 10 was chosen as the anniversary for the Pirate Bay by its founders.
The site was created online by Piratbyrån, a pro-culture organization in Sweden in 2003. It was created by some hackers and political activists in that year. The founders had two existing projects struggling with political and moral challenges and power structures.
The group had a hidden goal to offer a solution better than the local Antpiratbyrån, an anti-piracy outfit. They used BitTorrent file-sharing technology to start their website to encourage file sharing.
The Private Bay had its online debut in Mexico. Gottfrid Svartholm first developed this site on the server by his company where he was working. After passing a few months, it started moving to Sweden. In Sweden, it was hosted by a laptop that had 256MB RAM.
Source: PinterestThis one laptop of Fredrik made this site obtainable in Sweden. He also made some improvements to make it a completely operational tracker.
Piratbyrån has developed this site with the goal of creating the first public file sharing network for Sweden. However, the site achieved new heights and became the global file-sharing icon.
Pirate Bay has seen many ups and downs to reach this stage. In the initial years, it has faced a huge legal pressure as well as takedown messages from the copyright holders. The legal pressure was a heavy burden and it had to come out of this.
Some global powers such as the USA pressurized Sweden to take actions against this taunting pirate site. More challenges are on the way. At the crucial time, the founders of the site were the targets of private investigators.
The pressure was on the peak when its infrastructure was raided. After three years of its origin, in 2006, Swedish police officers created a data center in Stockholm with the objective of shutting down the servers of Pirate Bay. They succeeded to fulfill their objective.
Gottfrid was anticipating such an incident. He suggested Fredrik adopt precautionary measures to protect the site. They decided to create a backup and it helped them to save their site in the most difficult conditions. The backup helped the team to revive the site just within a matter of three days.
This confidence and approach made the founders popular. They made a swift comeback and saved their site. It made headlines worldwide, especially in Stockholm. People started waving the flags of Pirate Bay in public places that created a favorable environment for this site.
The raid was more than a normal raid. It opened the door for a criminal investigation leading to trial and jail for some founders. This turning point created a distance between the Piratbyrån founder members. They cut the ties. In their absence, the site came to the control of a new group.
The moderators can be easily accessible in the current condition. However, the original founders are behind the scene now. It was evident in 2014 when the second raid happened. At that time, no one even the staff had an idea about the raid.
The site made comeback after the second raid. All these challenges made it survive for fifteen years and created it the most popular pirate source.
The site has not made many changes in the recent past. However, it has created a different look during these progressing as well as challenging years. There is not much openness and activist attitude on the site now. There are only some public updates.
The 15th anniversary among all these challenges makes it clear it has a long way to go. Though it has suffered a lot in the past years, still, the comebacks make it stronger to serve more people.
[Source]
