When pirated copies of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" came out nearly two decades ago, The Pirate Bay changed its front page logo.
The Pirate Bay became the "Grand Theft Bay," illustrating the deviant stance upon which the site built its reputation since the year of its launch.
The GTA-inspired logo was the first of many 'doodles' that separated the 'most resilient torrent site' from its competition. Instead of hiding from law enforcement or big media's anti-piracy groups, The Pirate Bay often went on the offensive, facing all challenges head-on.
Many believed it was revolutionary, while others thought it was naive. What's clear, however, is that The Pirate Bay fulfilled an unmet source of demand.
Pirating Pioneers
At the time, it was nearly impossible for people to consume media online. Music streaming services simply didn't exist yet, games were sold wrapped in plastic, and Netflix had yet to start its streaming business. Meanwhile, everything was available on The Pirate Bay, for free.
Times have changed but even the most staunch pro-copyright advocates can't deny that piracy helped to lead the entertainment industries to new business models. Without the Napsters, Limewires and Pirate Bays of the time, media consumption wouldn't have evolved so swiftly.
There is no award for this accomplishment, however. On the contrary, the public faces of The Pirate Bay's founding crew all served prison sentences. Hollywood never managed to bring the site completely to its knees, but did make its founding fathers pay with life's most precious asset: TIME.
Intriguingly, The Pirate Bay story itself now serves as inspiration for a TV production. B-Reel Films started working on a Pirate Bay TV series for Sweden's public broadcaster SVT a few years ago
Peter Sunde (Simon Gregor Carlsson), Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (Arwid Swedrup) and
Fredrik Neij (Wiljam Lempling). photo: Stina Stjernkvist/SVT
None of the Pirate Bay founders are closely involved in the TV project, and they're certainly not being compensated either. Instead, the producers used interviews with other people involved, plus the vast amount of public information available on the Internet.
Filming Finished
The new Pirate Bay series is scheduled to be released on Swedish television later this year. It has just finished filming and the first images, as well as the leading characters, were recently revealed to the public.
The production took place in Stockholm, Sweden, but also ventured to other countries including Chile and Thailand, where Fredrik Neij was arrested and paraded in front of the press in 2014.
Time will tell how the producers and director have decided to tell this story; there are many rabbit holes to pursue after all. Director Jens Sjögren describes it as a thriller, albeit one with humor.
"The Pirate Bay is a character-driven thriller told with great heart, warmth, nerve, will, and humor that takes us from a basement in the suburbs to fancy offices in Hollywood. A story about how a spark in a student corridor takes off and risks setting fire to the entire establishment far away in Hollywood," Sjögren says.
Global Release Uncertain
With millions of former and current users of the torrent site, there will likely be some interest in the series from an international audience too. Thus far, no deals have been announced and, at this point, it's uncertain if the series will be available outside of Sweden this fall.
Dynamic Television has acquired the global distribution rights to the series. Speaking with TorrentFreak, publicist Marylou Johnston says that the series is now going post-production so it is "way too early" to report any international sales.
"International sales will start when we can show the series to potential buyers. I doubt we will have a global release but it could happen," Johnston notes.
Needless to say, selling a TV series to Hollywood, one that documents the history of its arch-enemy, is an intriguing proposition. While film insiders are smart enough to recognize potential when they see it, there's a certain barrier to overcome.
You Can't Stop Pirates?
Ironically, if The Pirate Bay series isn't made available globally, people might be incentivized to download a copy from The Pirate Bay instead. That would show that, despite being declared illegal a long time ago, the site still fills demand today.
If anything, The Pirate Bay's history has shown that it's impossible to stop people from pirating. The people involved are not oblivious to this fact either. However, it's no different from all other productions they're working on and Johnston doesn't expect that piracy will hurt sales.
"We can never guarantee that some 'pirate' version is not going to circulate but that applies to every show! Thankfully it doesn't affect sales," she explains
There are ways to minimize piracy, of course. A worldwide premiere on a streaming service, for example. If people can watch the series legally on a service they already subscribe to, there's less incentive to go to The Pirate Bay; sentiment aside.
While this sounds simple; making it happen isn't easy.
Global releases are still a rarity today for content owned by a third party, which typically sells it to the highest bidder. These negotiations take time and, in some cases, the offers simply aren't good enough.
In theory, a globally operating streaming service could pick the show up, either this year or after its Swedish premiere.
It would be truly revolutionary if all streaming services licensed the show at the same time, making it available everywhere and to everyone; Pirate Bay style. That utopian vision is probably a bit naive though.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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