Insider Trading Suspected In The Pirate Bay Sale

from the getting-weirder-every-day dept

The whole story of the supposed sale of The Pirate Bay gets odder and odder as more news comes out. Beyond the questionable business model the new owners are discussing, now comes the news that trading in GGF shares were halted prior to the transaction due to suspected insider trading. There was an unexplained bump in trading the week before the sale was announced, leading to suspicion that people were trading on non-public news. This could create more problems for GGF. On top of that, the stock exchange GGF is listed on is apparently already threatening GGF for owning The Pirate Bay, noting that it “wants to make sure that the companies that are traded on the list are managing legitimate businesses.” Given the conviction against the four people associated with The Pirate Bay, their assertion is that it’s not a legitimate business. Honestly, the story is somewhat surreal and feels quite like the trial itself: a lot of people not really taking things seriously.

Filed Under:
Companies: ggf, the pirate bay

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Comments on “Insider Trading Suspected In The Pirate Bay Sale”

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20 Comments
braindead (profile) says:

Honestly, the story is somewhat surreal and feels quite like the trial itself: a lot of people not really taking things seriously.

have you ever been to TPB? they use to have a section where they posted letter they received by companies asking them to remove that is copyrighted or threatening them to sue with the responses they sent. TBP staff always made fun of them in there replies.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

have you ever been to TPB? they use to have a section where they posted letter they received by companies asking them to remove that is copyrighted or threatening them to sue with the responses they sent. TBP staff always made fun of them in there replies.

They were making fun of the idiots like who, like yourself, thought TPB had infringing material on it’s site.

Yeebok (profile) says:

It's all a bit weird yes

However from what I’ve read, the aim of the business model (per the BBC) was to make some form of legitimacy out of it and ensure that copyright holders got paid etc. It was a plausible, if unlikely read, but conversely, I’m not that gullible to not think there’s some element of hype there.

The only real solution to the overall stalemate is to find a way for P2P or a kindred sharing technology to generate revenue for the copyright holder of whatever is downloaded, but without requiring an actual purchase from the downloader. It’ll take an apparently implausible business model to achieve that but I’d love to see -something- work.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: It's all a bit weird yes

The business model was a joke – charging ISPs to allow their users access? Please! it is a horribly inefficient model, with massive collection issues (worldwide) and no clear way to limit liability.

It’s a left field idea.

Actually, if the insider trading thing has any legs, it might also be another one of TPB attitude things: Use the same attitude they took to copyright violation notices and apply it to the stock market. Come up with a plan, pre-buy a butt load of shares, get a whole bunch more shares as part of the “sale”, and push out a bogus “business plan” that gets the market all excited for a few hours. Sell your shares off for the massive profit (they went up more than 50% in a single day), and you have all the ingredients for one of the most successful pump and dump operations.

like I said before, BrokeP ain’t broke anymore, between this cash and the money they piled away offshore, TPB guys ain’t going to be suffering any time soon, unless they get charged with stock fraud, which is possible.

Tor (profile) says:

Re: Re: It's all a bit weird yes

Please try to get the facts straight and not make things up.

According to the available information Brokep doesn’t get any money out of this deal. Why would the TPB guys be involved in stock fraud? (especially when they have very little money to invest)

The business model wouldn’t be based on allowing ISPs access but rather (one part of it at least) to optimize the traffic in the ISPs nets in order to reduce their costs.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: It's all a bit weird yes

Tor, seriously, you think they don’t have money? I have heard of companies in the US who were buying ad space on TPB @ $xx,xxx per month – oh yeah, the payments don’t go to sweden!

Trust me – TPB guys made money, they made out good, and I wouldn’t be shocked to find out they are some of the ones who pre-purchased stock in the company to make out like the bandits that they are.

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