The Pirate Bay Has Returned To the Land Of the Living After Two Months

The domain came back two weeks after the site was raided by Swedish police. The homepage featured a countdown to Feb. 1st, but it appears The Pirate Bay decided to come back early. It’s up now, dishing out torrents and boasting a big ol’ phoenix graphic, two months post-raid.

The Pirate Bay’s time offline inspired multiple “spinoffs” of the original site, including OldPirateBay.org, which according to TorrentFreak acquired millions of the original Pirate Bay’s users during the downtime.

One big change in the Bay: The original staff is locked out. TorrentFreak notes that it’s the kind of streamlining that “would make the site easier to manage and the risk of being brought down for a third time.”

And the staffers are none too pleased; in fact, it’s mutiny:

WTC-SWE, one of the lead admins of The Pirate Bay, told us that they are launching their own version of the Pirate Bay, which they believe will be the real one.

These “former” staff members will also relaunch the official Suprbay forums. Interestingly, Thepiratebay.se is no longer listing Suprbay in its links section.

So The Pirate Bay’s largely back, but it’s also splintered. But as our own Dan Van Winkle wrote when OldPirateBay.org launched days after the raid:

According to Variety, piracy levels quickly bounced back to normal following a brief, minute drop after the Pirate Bay raid. The Pirate Bay may be more symbolic of freedom of information than a critical tool for piracy, and right now it seems like it will live forever as a symbol—like Batman, but for stealing.

The most recent torrents when the site re-launched were from Dec. 9, the day of the take-down. Here’s the list of the current 12 most active torrents on the Bay as of noon Saturday, via Variety:

No. 1 was Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, followed by The Maze Runner, Edge of Tomorrow, Frozen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Divergent, Let’s Be Cops, The Fault in Our Stars,  Lucy, Transformers Age of Extinction, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent.

Others currently on the list a little later in the day: Nightcrawler, The Theory Of Everything, and Boyhood.

(Image via The Pirate Bay)

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