Proposal GGF: rights holders to take illegal content TPB down themselves

In a few days, it will become clear whether Swedish firm Global Gaming Factory has succeeded in convincing investors and shareholders in the take over of ThePirateBay.

GGF’s CEO Hans Pandeya, recently announced his plans to turn TPB into a legal site. He proposes to give rights holders access to the content management system. This allows them to remove content of which they own the rights and that has been posted without their consent. For the remaining content, rights holders will receive a licensing fee from GGF. GGF says not to plan managing content and not to remove it on its own accord, either.

GGF’s business model is based on charging users a monthly subscription fee.

BREIN does not look favourably on GGF’s plans for TPB. “In the proposed system the right holder must detect illegal content on the website and remove it. That is insufficient”, says BREIN director Tim Kuik. “This sort of Notice and Take Down system works in case of incidental infringement but not for the structural infringement that happens at The Pirate Bay.”

“The point is that The Pirate Bay is responsible for what happens on the site. They must keep preventive supervision and take care that no illegal torrents become available on the site. The site provides access to content which to an important and even overwhelming extent is illegal. So they can not assume that there is permission and leave it up to the right holders to check continuously for infringements. It is their site, their business and so their job to clean it up and keep it clean”, says Kuik.