Two days after the Pirate Bay announced their to-hell-with-the-copyright video service the last thing we were all expecting was for Peter Sunde and Co. to cash in their legendary download service. But they have.

All the comments I've read about the story have been on how the dream is over and that the founders of one of busiest sites on the web has sold its community up the river, but not so, say I and to prove so, here's five reasons why the Pirate Bay was right to sell to Global Gaming Factory, if only for £4.7m:

1) It's legal

With all the announcements around Digital Britain and the constant threats from lawyers and copyright infringement watchdogs, one might have thought it would come as a bit of a relief that you can download anything you want without having to worry about huge fines, bandwidth throttling or jail time?

What's more, just because it's legal, that doesn't mean to say that it's not going to be free. There's been no official word from GGF but we do know that the Pirate Bay founders (perhaps we should forever refer to them as the Founders?) went to great lengths to ensure that their buyers had the right ethos.

If the site really does get as much traffic as they say, then it sounds like GGF can afford to run it with no subscription cost for the display advertising alone, even if they're not prepared to get any more inventive than that. So, legal and very probably free. Sounds ok to me.

You would think that the guys over at the Pirate Bay might lay low for a little while, given the on-going court case and the possibility of jail-time.

But no, their fight against (or should I say, for) copyright infringement shows no sign of relenting - in fact it is showing clear signs of accelerating with the beta release of the Video Bay.

Nothing actually works on the Video Bay at present apart from a couple of test video clips that are a little temperamental. Visitors are presented with a homescreen that states: "This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don't bug us too much if the site ain't working properly."

Pirate Bay Spokesman Peter Sunde said it might be a while before the site is launched properly. "It will be done when it's done, in the future, in like a year or five," he said.

The Video Bay will aim to rival YouTube with streaming video content. Unlike YouTube, however, there will be no removal of content that may infringe on copyright legislation.

Considering the huge fan base that already exists at the Pirate Bay and the fact that many of these fans are tech savvy - expect the Video Bay to be huge in the near future.

Related post: Pirate Party wins two seats in the EU elections

(via TorrentFreak)

While most had their eyes on Stephen Fry at the Nokia N97 launch, some keen bods were busy pumping the execs for information and it seems they pumped well. It turns out that Nokia is planning on phasing out the DRM on their Comes With Music package meaning that users will be able to download tracks as MP3s and actually keep their tunes.

It's always been the desire of the mobile giant to go DRM-free but ultimately the decision has always been down to the labels who have never exactly been first to come round to new digital ideas.

It seems, though, that the big wigs have softened/modernised their attitudes since deals like the DRM-free one between Virgin and Universal and it looks as all with CWM will reap the rewards as of 2010.

A Nokia spokesperson said: "Nokia is committed to going DRM free on the Nokia Music Store in 2009".

Labour may have lost serious face but it's been a night to remember for the Pirate Party in the EU elections. The Swedish based political group will have won two seats with a 7.1% share of their national vote when the Lisbon Treaty passes increasing the Scandinavian county's number of MEPs from 18 to 20.

Leader of the party, Rick Falkvinge said:

"This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples' lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept that the authorities' mass-surveillance."

The Pirate Party polled a total of 200,000 votes, a huge increase on the 2006 national elections when they amassed 34,918 of the Swedish electorate, and a lot of this can be linked to the high profile Pirate Bay court case during which membership of the party tripled.

There was some success of the German branch of the party who managed 1% of the national vote; a good start but not enough for a seat just yet. Looking forward to seeing their name on my ballot paper next time around.

Hard to know exactly what policies the Pirates have beyond the obvious stance against copyright infringement but, regardless, I think it's an excellent step in EU politics to have a member voicing the kinds of opinions that would otherwise never be heard. Even if the Pirate MEPs are unable to swing any major decisions, they'll be able to change a few perceptions on the protection of the antiquated business models of the cinema and recording industries.

(via Torrent Freak)

Seven-million people in the UK use illegal downloads - apparently costing the economy tens of billions of pound according to government advisors.

Researcher found that 1.3 million people use one file sharing site per weekday, which compared to the size of the population hardly seems like an epidemic.

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) warned it may be hard to change attitudes - although some say it's not attitudes that need to change but the industry who still charge a disproportionate amount for digital copies.

The government says work must be done internationally to tackle the problem.

Intellectual Property Minister, (a whole minister - is that really necessary?) David Lammy said the report put into context the impact illegal downloads had on copyright industries and the UK economy as a whole.

"This is not an issue confined by national boundaries and I am sure that other [EU] member states and their copyright industries will find this report of use in the development of policy," added Mr Lammy.

An alliance (or "greedy-hoard") of nine UK bodies representing the creative industries joined trades unions to call on the government to force internet service providers to cut off persistent illegal file-sharers. And everyone knows, if there is one sector you don't want to piss off it's the creative industries - imagine a strike, no Doctors, no Eastenders, no Holby, no One Show, imagine the chaos. Imagine the silence. Bliss.

ISPs have gallantly shirked any responsibility reiterating that it isn't their job to police the internet.

What this all goes to show is that the government and people doing the government's research still fundamentally don't understand downloading.

They aren't costing the economy tens of billions of pounds, that is nothing but propaganda and scaremongering. Using the flagging economy to turn the screw on a kid who's downloaded the latest version of Photoshop CS4 so he can put the head of the kid that bullies him at school on a camel seems frankly, a bit much.

What these researchers are suggesting is that downloaders would buy every movie, song or program they've torrented, P2Pd or USBd, and that's just not the case. They'd do without.

And maybe the government have decided now isn't exactly the best time for MPs to be sounding off about freeloading: Because filling in a claims form and taking public money to clean your moat is, undeniably, far more devious, than downloading Space Cowboys.

Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland and Tommy Lee Jones - in space! Amazing.

(Via BBC)

What is it with Swedish judges and their obsession with the Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property? It turns out that her honour in charge of the Pirate Bay after-trial to decide whether the first hearing was presided over by a biased judge has been removed for, yes, you guessed it, bias. Nice.

Judge Ulrika Ihrfelt was relieved of her position on Wednesday and despite this further set-back and level of ridiculousness, the appellate court's president, Fredrik Wersall, said the case would be sorted "in a few weeks at the maximum" - provided they can find someone with now preconceptions on copyright infringement presumably.

(via Wired)

First Facebook had a go, then the word was that Google made an offer and now the rumour is that Apple plans to buy Twitter and announce it in time for WWDC on 9th June.

The mooted price has jumped a mile from the last supposed offer of $250 million to a far healthier $700 million and according to the quote from an insider, "Apple is in late stage negotiations".

Hard to know how much truth there is in this one. Last time it was just a meeting about advertising, apparently, so if there even is some talking between the two companies, then it could have been about a whole bunch of things. If it is about a deal, then that represents a very interesting move for what is, essentially, a hardware and software company into the world of services.

Google is fast becoming the giant of the tech world and it's their take over of the internet that the waning Microsoft covets. Is this Apple's first steps towards ensuring long term growth or is it just the next big company on the list to be linked with the microblogging darling. A fiver says it'll be Twitter to buy Yahoo! next.

(via @Zee Tech Crunch)