The Pirate Bay / THEPB

The Beginning

The Pirate Bay is an organization that in name was started close to a millennia ago, however since then it has transformed into something very different than it was in it’s cradle.

The root of this organization was started in 2003, then as a way to freely exchange information over a computer network. This was swiftly transformed into a place for people to share copyrighted material with each other, in true essence of piracy, and it quickly grew to receive global recognition. However, it’s rise to fame was a blessing is disguise as more and more people joined in they drew the attention of authorities who eventually managed to shut them down. As they jailed those responsible for the service and hunted those who had used it the sympathies for the cause grew and in some cases, as with for example Wikileaks, even turned into big politics.

Over the next century The Pirate Bay became a burning topic in intellectual and political circles. The freedom of information and the right to personal integrity was endlessly debated with authorities and in particular the military on one side and the common people and in particular students on the other. In certain totalitarian countries the issue was driven to it’s point where large demonstrations were mercilessly dispersed by police or military forces forcing the protesters to find other, often violent, ways to fight the system. In 2089, despite enormous protests around the world, The Pirate Bay was named as a cyber terrorist organization by the UN.

This did not have the effect that governments were hoping for and instead the organization grew to an unprecedented size as millions and millions of people declared their sympathies and gave The Pirate Bay both financial and intellectual support. It’s climax was reached as a majority of Swedish voters elected Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party) to power in the 2094 election and The Pirate Bay was officially granted their charter.

The next few years are pivotal in the history of The Pirate Bay as governments across the world, forced by the UN resolution signed 5 years prior, officially embargoed Sweden. While Sweden plunged into an unprecedented recession, The Pirate Bay experienced their glory days. At it’s peak it was estimated that a billion people across the world, almost 10% of the entire population of Earth at the time, where members of The Pirate Bay organization and the financial assets they acquired during these times provided the basis for what was to come.

Despite the UN resolution most countries in Europe and many other democratic countries unofficially supported Sweden and provided them with whatever resources were needed. Export was the real issue since it was almost impossible for other countries to sell Swedish products. Small quantities could be sold on black markets abroad, but for most companies in Sweden it meant a complete halt of international sales. The Pirate Bay really stepped up to save many of the companies that would have otherwise perished, partly financially, but mainly by performing industrial espionage making sure that the companies stayed competitive throughout the time of embargoes.

In 2104 the UN resolution that had named The Pirate Bay a cyber terrorist organization was revoked due to increased pressure from the general population of earth as well as democratic governments. As ironic as this may be it marked the end of The Pirate Bays glory days. 2 Years later Piratpartiet lost their majority in the Swedish election gaining only 8% support and an era in Swedish history came to a close.

Evolution

The Pirate Bay was now in a wake, still considered a criminal organization, but no longer hunted enough to gain sympathy from the masses. The number of members plummeted by 95% in 3 years and the contributions, that had been the financial backbone of the organization, with it. Something had to be done if The Pirate Bay was to survive. A number of solutions were discussed and most of them dismissed. In the end two options remained. The first was to finance the organization by means of cyber crime, hack banks, financial institutions, companies and governments to extort or simply steal money from them. The second option was the complete opposite, to form a legitimate company and cut all ties to criminal activity. The latter prevailed and The Pirate Bay became The Pirate Bay Group PLC, an investment company focusing mainly on cutting edge technology that could be traded on stock markets everywhere.

The Pirate Bay already had large portfolios of stocks in Swedish companies, and the massive amounts of cash on hand that had been acquired over the last 15 years or so was used to buy into major international companies and to create a subsidiary named The Pirate Bay Safe Storage AB. The vision with which the subsidiary was founded upon was to provide anonymous network solutions and data storage free of charge to anyone, anywhere. The company was incidentally left in the capable hands of Lars Sunde, a direct decedent to Peter Sunde, one of the co-founders of the original Pirate Bay. Under his leadership The Pirate Bay Safe Storage AB set an enormously ambitious plan in work. By the help of drones and WiFi repeaters that could be airdropped in more volatile situations, the user was able to access a satellite network which in turn would route the signal to servers hidden in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, thus allowing the user to access networks anonymously. It was a costly endeavor, but the holding company had plenty of means and was happy to pay the bills to keep some of the original spirits alive.

In 2158 The pirate Bay Safe Storage moved their headquarters to the newly terraformed Mars and 6 years later the parent company followed suit for tax reasons. Over the next 100 years not much changed. The Pirate Bay Safe Storage expanded their network and the first servers where hidden in the Kuiper Belt while the parent company made sound investments and managed to increase their holdings by a substantial margin. In 2272, the year after Nick Croshaw discovered the first jump point, several of the highest officials of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage as well as the CEO of The Pirate Bay Group PLC was put in jail following an investigation. The investigation was part of a global investigation into organized crime and after The Pirate Bay Safe Storage refused to hand over network logs they were charged with obstruction of justice as well as aiding and abetting and accessory to a multitude of crimes ranging from extorsion and fraud to trafficking and murder. The CEO and a network executive of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage received lengthy sentences while most of the others charged only had to serve shorter stretches up to a couple of years.

Transformation

The Pirate Bay Safe Storage was in a complete state of disarray as most of those in charge was behind bars. The Pirate Bay Group PLC whose CEO had only received a suspended sentence fared better and while there was still a fair portion of turmoil the structure of the company remained intact. The day after the trial ended an emergency board meeting, which ended up lasting more the 4 days, was called. The main object of the meeting was to secure the leadership of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage and to figure out a way to avoid further clashes with the law. It was decided that the current CEO of The Pirate Bay Group PLC would also become CEO of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage. The Pirate Bay Safe Storage would then receive a loan from the parent company and create a foundation which would buy all the stocks in The Pirate Bay Group PLC. After that all assets in the parent company would be sold off and transformed into cryptocurrency. In the meantime, The Pirate Bay Safe Storage would move their HQ from Mars, where it had been situated for 115 years, to a secret location in the asteroid belt where business could be conducted with no further regard to earthly laws. After the move was complete all assets of The Pirate Bay Group PLC would be transferred to The Pirate Bay Foundation and the Holding company would then be terminated making The Pirate Bay Foundation the new holding company of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage which in turn was the founder and sole benefactor of The Pirate Bay Foundation. After this all the staff of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage would be fired and then rehired by the foundation and contracted as

This would mean two things. Firstly, it would ensure the future of The Pirate Bay Safe Storage giving them more or less unlimited funding and secondly, it would relieve the organization of physical ownership leaving no one in charge in case the authorities came knocking yet again.

(This text is being updated continuously)