It appears that crime does pay. Just a few months ago, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström, the brains behind the popular underground web site, Pirate Bay, were sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay large fine. Now, they are millionaires.
The pirates, it would seem, have gone legit. While awaiting the results of their appeal, Sunde, Neij, Svartholm and Lundström sold their company to software company Global Gaming Factory X for 60m Swedish crowns (about $7.83 million US). Any chance that the company would keep its rogue appeal has likely died as the Global Gaming agreed that Pirate Bay must comply with international copyright laws. It sounds great but not complying was more or less the point of the site.
So what gives? The former “pirates” say that a sale was necessary to preserve the site: “On the internet, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen.” Hmm. By “evolve” they clearly mean “change.” What remains to be seen is whether that change is a good thing.
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