TPB Founder Can’t Stop Russian Pirates

A couple months ago a Russian court found out that Gottfrid Svartholm, one of TPB founders, was also listed as contact for some of the largest Russian pirate websites. The authorities ordered Svartholm to shut down those portals and pay the fees for the publication of the verdict. However, it turned out that he can’t help Russia, even if he wanted to.

Gottfrid Svartholm, The Pirate Bay founder, is held in a Danish prison at the moment, where he’s a suspect in a large hacking case, while in Russia he was caught up in one of the first cases under local anti-piracy law. Russian copyright owners have targeted a few file-sharing websites, including popular Rutor.org. The prosecutors found out that Gottfrid’s name appeared as the domain registrant for a couple of the file-sharing websites: Rutor.org and Kinozal.tv. Moreover, PRQ (the hosting company founded by Svartholm) was listed as the registrant organization.

Two months ago, Gottfrid Svartholm was ordered to stop the distribution of the copyrighted works by changing the domain name data, and pay the legal fees. Although nobody knows whether Russia made any attempts to reach out to Svartholm, it turned out that he can’t help them, even if he wanted to. PRQ can only offer customers to use the hosting company’s contact details as a privacy shield, but the client would still have full control over the domain.

Moreover, there are some signs that in the case of Rutor, the operators of the website filled out Svartholm’s name themselves, because it’s misspelled. But even if PRQ were legally responsible there isn’t much the TPB founder can do, because he sold the company many years ago. Finally, the fact that someone else than Svartholm has control over the domains is backed up by a recent Whois change for the Kinozal.tv – it doesn’t list Svartholm as the contact person any longer. This change Gottfrid couldn’t have made from prison.

Some experts believe that Svartholm may not even know about the Russian case, and perhaps the Rutor operators will remove his name to avoid more trouble. Indeed, The Pirate Bay founder currently has enough other things to worry about – he remains in prison for now, because a Danish court recently extended his custody until February 5.