Type of site | One-click hosting |
---|---|
Dissolved | August 16, 2023 |
Owners | Unknown |
Created by | Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij |
URL | bayfiles |
Commercial | Ad supported |
Registration | Optional |
Launched | 2011 |
Current status | Offline |
BayFiles was a file-hosting website created by two of the founders of The Pirate Bay.
BayFiles works by letting users upload files to its servers and share them online. [1] Users are provided with a link to access their files, which can be shared with anyone on the internet so that they can download the files associated with the particular link.
One of the critical features of the BayFiles hosting service is that its founders have chosen to disallow the uploads of any content that violates third party copyright laws. [2] This has come as a surprise to many people who are familiar with the founder's previous website The Pirate Bay, which was surrounded by legal controversy concerning copyright issues. [1] In the website's terms of service, it asserts that it will disable the accounts of those users who frequently violate its copyright terms. [2] BayFiles co-founder Fredrik Neij has even claimed to have hired DMCA agents who will help ensure that BayFiles is properly complying with current United States copyright law. [3]
Despite BayFiles' goal of complying with U.S. digital copyright law, some have speculated that it will still potentially face major lawsuits because of the legal history its founders and their The Pirate Bay have had with record labels and movie studios in the past. [1] But as long as BayFiles never explicitly promotes copyright infringement, it can maintain the legal status of its operation through relying on the precedent established in a 2010 court case won by RapidShare. [4]
Bayfiles was shut down in November 2014. The reasons for the site's sudden disappearance are unknown, though some have indicated it was likely linked to the arrest of its sole registrant [5] and former Pirate Bay operator Fredrik Neij. [6]
In July 2018, the website was brought back to life, this time being run by unknown operators.
As of 10 August 2023, BayFiles went offline, the website and its uploaded files cannot be reached. [7] BayFiles has gone offline due to the closure of parent service AnonFiles. [8]
In computer networks, download means to receive data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems. This contrasts with uploading, where data is sent to a remote server.
The Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland is a stichting in which the recording industry and movie studios of the Netherlands participate.
The Pirate Bay is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer, file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.
This is a timeline of events in the history of networked file sharing.
Hans Fredrik Lennart Neij, alias TiAMO, is the co-founder of The Pirate Bay, and the Swedish Internet service provider and web hosting company PRQ. Neij was one of the defendants in The Pirate Bay Trial which began on 16 February 2009. He and other operators of The Pirate Bay were charged with assisting users in copyright infringing practices. His time during the aforementioned trial has been captured in the documentary film TPB AFK by Simon Klose.
Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, alias anakata, is a Swedish computer specialist, known as the former co-owner of the web hosting company PRQ and co-founder of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay together with Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde.
PRQ is a Swedish Internet service provider and web hosting company created in 2004.
isoHunt was an online torrent files index and repository, where visitors could browse, search, download or upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment nature. The website was taken down in October 2013 as a result of a legal action from the MPAA; by the end of October 2013 however, two sites with content presumably mirrored from isohunt.com were reported in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became a de facto replacement of the original site. It is not associated in any way with the old staff or owners of the site, and is to be understood as a separate continuation.
Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong–based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing.
The use of the BitTorrent protocol for the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content generated a variety of novel legal issues. While the technology and related platforms are legal in many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are attempting to address this avenue of copyright infringement. Notably, the use of BitTorrent in connection with copyrighted material may make the issuers of the BitTorrent file, link or metadata liable as an infringing party under some copyright laws. Similarly, the use of BitTorrent to procure illegal materials could potentially create liability for end users as an accomplice.
TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.
Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, alias brokep, is a Swedish entrepreneur and politician. He is best known for being a co-founder and ex-spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, an illegal BitTorrent search engine. He is an equality advocate and has expressed concerns over issues of centralization of power to the European Union in his blog. Sunde also participates in the Pirate Party of Finland and describes himself as a socialist. In April 2017, Sunde founded Njalla, a privacy oriented domain name registrar, hosting provider and VPN provider.
The Pirate Bay raid took place on 31 May 2006 in Stockholm, when The Pirate Bay, a Swedish website that indexes torrent files, was raided by Swedish police, causing it to go offline for three days. Upon reopening, the site's number of visitors more than doubled, the increased popularity attributed to greater exposure through the media coverage, which is an example of the Streisand effect.
The Pirate Bay trial was a joint criminal and civil prosecution in Sweden of four individuals charged for promoting the copyright infringement of others with the torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay. The criminal charges were supported by a consortium of intellectual rights holders led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), who filed individual civil compensation claims against the owners of The Pirate Bay.
OpenBitTorrent is an open BitTorrent tracker project for the BitTorrent protocol.
File sharing in the United Kingdom relates to the distribution of digital media in that country. In 2010, there were over 18.3 million households connected to the Internet in the United Kingdom, with 63% of these having a broadband connection. There are also many public Internet access points such as public libraries and Internet cafes.
This is a list on countries where at least one internet service provider (ISP) formerly or currently censors the popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB).
Nyaa Torrents is a BitTorrent website focused on East Asian media. It is one of the largest public anime-dedicated torrent indexes.
RARBG was a website that provided torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. From 2014 to 2023, RARBG repeatedly appeared in TorrentFreak's yearly list of most visited torrent websites. It was ranked 4th as of January 2023. The website did not allow users to upload their own torrents.
KissAnime was an anime-focused file streaming website that hosted links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies and TV shows illegally for free. It was a sister site to a related manga viewing website, KissManga. KissAnime was described as "one of the world’s biggest streaming anime websites". TorrentFreak reported that the sites had audiences of millions and that for a time, KissAnime was "the most visited pirate site in the world".