RIP ‘thepiratebay.se’, domain name has expired

The Pirate Bay’s Infamous Swedish ‘.se’ Domain Has Expired

The historical domain name – thepiratebay.se – which played an essential role in the world’s most popular and most visited torrent website, The Pirate Bay (TPB) has expired and will not be activated again, as a court order has prohibited the platform from renewing it, reported TorrentFreak.

For those unaware, The Pirate Bay is a torrent website that distributes copyrighted material such as movies, music and games. The Pirate Bay was originally founded in Sweden in 2003 and its main point of access was thepiratebay.org. However, the website has faced several shutdowns and domain seizures due to violations of copyright law, making them switch to numerous new web addresses to continue their operation to avoid seizures or other legal threats.

One such address is ‘Thepiratebay.se’, a Swedish domain for a Swedish website, which expired last week, and was locked by the Swedish Supreme Court after being confiscated and forfeited to the Swedish government in May, forcing the torrent site to move back to the original ‘thepiratebay.org’. This implies that the people running The Pirate Bay cannot renew or update the domain nor can it be sold to anyone. The ‘.se’ domain started redirecting all visitors to the original ‘thepiratebay.org’ from where it had all started

Thepiratebay.se domain hosted the torrent service for over eight years – from its foundation in 2004 through 2012 – when it moved to the .org domain. Apparently, The Pirate Bay team changed its official domain name to thepiratebay.se from thepiratebay.org in 2012, fearing that U.S. authorities would seize the latter and found it safer to be hosted in Sweden. In order not to lose the original ‘.org’, PirateBay officials preferred a local exit to escape the onslaughts they suffered. Around that time, the Department of Homeland Security has taken down hundreds of sites offline.

However, in 2013, local anti-piracy groups attempted to seize control of thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se, leading the infamous site to switch back and forth between the two. Despite the legal issues, the .se domain turned out to be a safer haven than most alternatives that were either seized or closed without prior notice.

While a Supreme Court appeal is still pending, the court has placed a lock on the domain that prohibits the owner from changing or transferring it, which in turns explains why it has expired.

Even though the domain administrator has put ‘thepiratebay.se’ on sale again for a mere $90 despite the judicial blockade, it is very unlikely that anyone will be able to purchase it, if the domain is locked.

The fear that the U.S. controlled .org domain was easy prey prompted TPB switch to .se domain. What is interesting is that The Pirate Bay’s .ORG domain has never been threatened by U.S. courts and has remained online almost uninterruptedly over the years despite entertainment industry pressure.

Source: TorrentFreak

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