This year, The Pirate Bay will celebrate its 17th anniversary.

That’s quite an achievement for any website but particularly for a pirate site when considering the mounting legal pressures.

Over the years The Pirate Bay has certainly weathered a few storms. There were raids, technical problems, and hosting complications, but the site has always returned. This year it even regained its position as the most popular torrent site of all, after a year of absence from the top spot.

While the infamous torrent site often makes the news, surprisingly little is known about what happens behind the scenes. The site’s operator, who goes by the nickname “Winston,” rarely comments in public. At the start of the new year, however, he made an exception.

For the first time ever, TPB’s operator has publicly shared statistics on how much data are ‘uploaded’ through the site. These files, including movies, software, and music, don’t actually hit its servers. They can be shared through the torrent and magnet links on the site though.

TPB’s operator reveals that, in 2019, the uploaded torrents linked to a massive 776 terabytes of data. More than half of these (405 terabytes) are still actively shared or seeded, as it’s called in BitTorrent terminology.

This is a lot of data, but it’s only a subsection of everything that’s available via The Pirate Bay. In total, more than 6,720 terabytes, or 6.7 petabytes have been ‘uploaded’ to the site. Of this data, over 2.5 petabytes are still being seeded.

The chart below shows how this uploaded data evolved over time. Older content is obviously seeded by fewer people, but that’s not the only thing that stands out. Most visible is the continued increase in uploads between 2004 and 2014, and the significant drop after that.

This drop can be explained by The Pirate Bay’s prolonged downtime around the end of 2014 and the start of 2015. Following a raid by the Swedish police, the torrent site remained offline for roughly two months, which substantially hurt the upload numbers.

After the downtime, the ‘uploaded’ data was roughly cut in half. This coincided with a drop in visitor numbers. Even today the site hasn’t fully recovered to the pre-raid numbers, but volumes are increasing year by year.

An archive of more than six petabytes is certainly impressive. According to TPB’s own calculations, it would cost $168,000 to put it all on Amazon’s cheapest 14TB hard drives. It’s certainly not impossible, as the Internet Archive hosts 48 petabytes, but it’s costly.

The Pirate Bay doesn’t have to store much though. All the torrent files combined make up a few gigabytes at most, as the full files are stored and shared by users. While this is cost-effective, it does come at a price.

Since more than half of TPB’s archive is no longer seeded, more than four petabytes of data are not available for download. This may change if people seed again, but the general trend is that availability goes down as time passes.

In order to keep decentralized distribution working, people have to share. TPB’s Winston notes that the ability to share not just files but also costs and resources is BitTorrent’s main advantage.

“This is where bittorent shines, as long as we all keep seeding, especially the rarer and older stuff, one or a few don’t have to take all the cost,” Winston says.

“We all contribute a few cents or dollars per month, on internet connections we already have, and unused storage on our computers, and everyone worldwide can continue to enjoy the torrents for years and decades to come,” he adds, while wishing the site’s users a happy new year.

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With tens of millions of visitors per month, MangaDex is a real force in the manga community.

The site’s status as an unofficial provider of manga ‘scanlations’ (scanned copies with translations) is valued by fans, many of whom are keen to experience harder-to-find content in languages other than their native tongue.

Last week, however, MangaDex fans had to go without their usual fix. The site went down with staff reporting that a server migration and database maintenance were underway. The platform eventually returned yesterday but not under its usual .org domain.

According to an announcement by moderator ‘Zephyrus’, MangaDex was forced to switch to MangaDex.cc due to legal issues.

“Our .cc domain is temporary for now,” he writes. “Our .org domain was acquired via our reseller, who has removed us from CF and have stopped supporting us due to legal pressure.”

‘CF’ is a reference to Cloudflare, the US-based CDN company utilized by millions of regular sites as well as large volumes of ‘pirate’ sites and services.

While MangaDex was down, TorrentFreak discovered that during December 2019 the site was targeted in a DMCA subpoena filed by attorney Evan Stone on behalf of VIZ Media, LLC, mentioning a chapter of ‘Boruto’.

It remains unclear whether that specific problem caused the downtime during the past few days but MangaDex has now confirmed the reason for the DMCA subpoena.

“To anyone paying attention to the news, the Boruto chapter in question was an official English rip. Uploading official chapters has always been against our rules, and we’d appreciate your continued assistance in reporting any content that breaks our rules in the future,” Zephyrus notes.

“Thanks to all our users for staying vigilant and reporting all official sources, early releases, troll chapters and all other content that breaks our rules.”

Interestingly, someone claiming to be a former admin of a manga fan group hit Reddit yesterday to issue an apology for triggering the DMCA subpoena. Claiming to be from ‘Boltmangacolor’, a group that has been coloring Boruto manga since February 2019, the individual said it was their colored upload that caused the problem.

“We used to upload our works on imgur, but then switched to mangadex because of efficiency reasons; we meant in no way to infringe any rules, we honestly didn’t know such a rule even existed, and that it could cause all of these problems,” the person wrote.

“Please note that this is in no way related to the Boruto community or the Boruto manga itself, but only to us admins who uploaded and chose the scans to color. We stopped working with the team a month ago, so stuff like this will never happen again. We are deeply, tremendously sorry.”

In the meantime, MangaDex says it’s still in the process of migrating content, meaning that some older chapters may not be available on the new server. In any event, the forecast is for the site to be back to its previous form in the early part of this week.

Additionally, MangaDex says it also has issues in respect of funding the platform. The alarm bells don’t seem to be ringing too loudly at the moment but Zephyrus says that due to its reseller terminating support for handling site donations, other avenues are being explored. If all else fails, ads may appear on the site “as a last resort.”

The site is currently operating relatively smoothly via MangaDex.cc but the scanlation platform believes that it will return to MangaDex.org when the “transfer to our new provider completes.”

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People who run pirate sites and services tend to be pretty interesting individuals. Some are extraordinarily talented and smart, with technical skills that can leave one in awe. Some are funny and insightful too, while others are irritable and almost impossible to deal with.

Surprise. People who work at anti-piracy companies can be pretty interesting individuals too. They also tend to be talented and smart, with technical skills in abundance. In some cases they are some of the nicest people you will ever deal with while some are the nastiest characters around. Like their counterparts, they cover the usual spread of human traits.

In many ways, however, these warring groups of people are very similar, they just approach the same thing from different angles. The aim of pirates is to spread media and the aim of anti-pirates is to stop them from doing so. Put this scenario into a video game and its no different from a team deathmatch. It’s not personal either, it’s just business.

The point is that both ‘teams’ are on the same battlefield and as a result, can benefit from the same strategies. And it can be argued that there has been no greater strategist than Chinese general Sun Tzu, the credited author of The Art of War.

Despite being written 2,500 years ago, the wisdom of this work shines through today. So which of his teachings are most relevant to both sides of the piracy ‘wars’?

Perhaps the most obvious, which underlines the similarities between the factions, is that “to know your enemy, you must become your enemy“. On a basic level, by understanding your adversary deeply, you are able to think how he thinks. Stepping deeper, some ‘pirates’ on pirate sites are not pirates at all, even though they act like them.

“It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results.”

Perhaps one of the great ironies of starting a pirate platform is that if it fails quickly, the disappointment comes with a gilded edge – the enemy will never come. Great success, on the other hand, almost certainly means the opposite. Not considering this at the very beginning can be a recipe for disaster.

As Sun Tzu said: “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

In 2019 this quote became relevant every time we wrote about small Kodi-addon developers in the UK being targeted by FACT and even the police. The majority of these people seemed to have miscalculated how important their software would ultimately become and, as a result, left a trail of digital breadcrumbs to their front doors.

When the authorities arrive with overwhelming force, a cascade of quotes inevitably follows, all centered around the imbalance of power and the pointlessness of self-sacrifice in an unwinnable battle. Importantly, they know that “supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

That’s what the strongly-worded cease-and-desist letters backed up with a credible threat of civil or criminal prosecution aim to achieve. They don’t want a war, you don’t want to lose, so be sensible and back away now, they say. Or as Sun Tzu put it “build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across” in the hope that the “the wise warrior avoids the battle.“

Of course, there is a valid theory that anti-piracy groups cannot take on the world so if everyone resisted they would be unable to cope with the workload. They know that better than anyone so they pick their fights wisely, in order to project an image of power and present a credible deterrent.

“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill,” Sun Tzu said. “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

But for some pirates, giving in has never been an option and one needs to look no further than The Pirate Bay to see how Sun Tzu’s teachings have applied again and again. Every single time that site or the people behind it have been targeted, the response has been the same – this will not work and we will never stop.

Host targeted, we have another – and another. Domain targeted, we have a dozen more. Blocked by ISPs, here are a thousand proxies. Or as Sun Tzu wrote, “Convince your enemy that he will gain very little by attacking you. This will diminish his enthusiasm.”

Tying up disproportionate resources in one battle is not prudent, particularly against a resilient enemy such as The Pirate Bay. “If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak,” Sun Tzu taught. “By reinforcing every part, he weakens every part.”

The Pirate Bay, however, is a unique case. Having lost so many battles, they now operate from a position of strength. The site isn’t invincible but there are many softer targets that produce more bang for content providers’ buck – and less embarrassment when it all comes to nothing – again.

When everything is said and done, setting out to achieve anything significant in piracy is a gamble. Sun Tzu probably has something to say about that too, but a Chinese proverb explains things perfectly. It’s a plan that should never be deviated from, if survival needs to be ensured.

“If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.”

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One of the most curious ongoing piracy cases in the world right now involves popular YouTuber Bill Omar Carrasquillo, aka OMI IN A HELLCAT.

In November 2019, the apparently mega-rich founder of pirate IPTV service Gears TV and Gears Reloaded took to YouTube to declare that he’d been raided by FBI and IRS agents who took pretty much everything he had.

A fleet of supercars and at least $5m in funds from his bank accounts were among the haul, he claimed, assertions that he later repeated in several YouTube videos and even a TV interview with CBS News.

But while most people involved in copyright and tax evasion matters tend to remain tight-lipped while their cases are ongoing, Carrasquillo is taking the opposite approach. For reasons best known to him, he’s talking about his problems and history every week, giving additional details that previously hadn’t been in the public eye.

An interview with fellow YouTube channel ‘Say Cheese TV‘ this week has only poured more fuel on the fire, with Carrasquillo revealing that he got into piracy after an unpleasant experience that ended his previously-rumored drug-dealing days.

“I got into this little altercation where I got robbed. That’s the last time I ever sold drugs, on July 4, 2014. I and I said ‘you know what, fuck this’, I ain’t never gonna sell drugs again,” he said.

After this experience, OMI said he went through a few weeks of depression but then a couple of months later a thought popped into his head as a way to make money – Firestick.

“Once that Firestick popped in my head I was like, ‘You know what, I was broke before and I sold DVDs’,” he said.

Noting that the plastic discs are now more or less obsolete, he says he wanted to find a way to deliver content to people digitally – while making some money of course.

“I gotta find a way to put digital movies onto a stick and that’s how it started. Back when Kodi was poppin’ I was one of the first ones doing Kodi sticks and that’s how I started making a lot of money. Buying these boxes from Amazon already pre-loaded and just re-selling them for more money. I’d buy them for $50 and sell them for $120-$150 and that’s how it started,” he told Say Cheese.

At the time OMI says he had 10-15 ‘bands’ ($10-$15,000) put aside in savings but the Firestick business gained traction and quickly brought in a lot more money.

“I first called my brother I said, ‘You know, I’m making five bands [$5,000] a week. And he said, ‘You ain’t making no five bands a week’. I said ‘I swear to God, off these Firestick things’.”

Then according to Carrasquillo, the business began to skyrocket.

“Two months later I’m making $15,000, then a month later – three months later, I’m making $30,000 a week, then $40,000 a week, then $100,000 a week. Damn, $200,000 a week, $300,000 a week, $400,000 a week. I thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing here?”

After just 12 months the big milestone was reached.

“I became a millionaire after a year,” OMI said. “I did good, made a couple of million. But 2017 to 2018? My God.”

What’s important to note here is that OMI says he didn’t get rich by selling Firesticks to individuals, one by one, piece by piece. The business of selling pre-loaded sticks was only a prelude to his major cash generator – the launch of his own pirate IPTV service.

“What happened was I made these apps, I made an app called Gears TV. If you ever watched anything with a Gears TV app on it, that was mine. The app sold for about a year and a half, two years ago,” he said.

“So I’m living my regular life. Now I’m making a couple of hundred ‘bands’ [$200k] every day, every other day. I don’t want to get into specific details about how much money I’m making because I’m still fighting this case. But I’m seeing [millions]. Like too many millions.”

The key is that OMI wasn’t making millions simply from selling an app. He doesn’t go into huge detail during his interviews but it’s clear that the users of the Gears app also required a recurring subscription, which meant that money was coming in all the time through resellers of the service.

“They’re buying but these people that I sold the app to still have to pay me my bread. So everything they’re making off that app, they got to fork it over. Cos I was selling the app for 40 ‘M’s….to a couple of people….to a group.”

By any standard, the amounts being discussed here are considerable, especially in the light of a supposed ongoing copyright infringement and tax evasion investigation. But of course, there will still be people out there thinking they’d like a piece of that action, a point not lost on Say Cheese who asked if Carrasquillo had any tips for fans thinking of starting up a similar service.

“Listen, what I did – it takes hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of infrastructure to do what I did. I started with the slow grind and I got to where I got to. But trust me, where we was at in 2014, 2015, 2016, you would never get to that point now,” he responded.

“The Feds are trying to cut down every streaming app – and streaming ain’t illegal. Illegal was the movies. You can’t host movies, that’s the illegal part. That’s why I think they’re having such a hard time with this case, it’s because I wasn’t fucking with movies. It was a straight streaming app, I wasn’t stealing channels, I was paying for my cable boxes, I was paying for my cable service.

“And that’s why I’m so comfortable talking about it. They know. They took all the cable boxes out of all my houses that they hit, they took all the video encoders. Encoders are like capture cards. I basically made a Twitch network, private, with all channels for $10-$15 per month. I had a ton of subscribers, I don’t want to talk about how many subscribers I had, it’s up to them [the FBI/IRS] to figure it out.”

OMI also revealed that during a recent flight back from the Dominican Republic, the Feds were actually on the plane with him. He said he was joking around but in one of his videos there was an agent sitting next to him “the whole time.”

But despite having “pretty much everything” taken from him in November, Carrasquillo can be seen ‘buying’ yet more new cars in his latest YouTube videos. This, he says, is a result of the revenue he’s generating from his YouTube content, which he claims is currently around $50,000 per month – with a potential for more.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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