Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 6 Aug 2012 14:35:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120806/12575219946/ukraine-takes-down-demonoid-as-gift-to-us-government.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120806/12575219946/ukraine-takes-down-demonoid-as-gift-to-us-government.shtml Colombia rushing through its own version of SOPA right before a visit from Obama. And now, the Ukraine appears to have seized Demonoid with the timing designed to coincide with Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky‘s first trip to the US. Demonoid may well be breaking the law (we'll wait for the details on that, though the report claims that the site was careful to stay on the right side of Ukrainian law), but the timing is once again suspicious, as is the willingness of other countries to kowtow to US diplomatic pressure in cases like this.

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]]> another-one-down http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120806/12575219946 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:26:23 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100820/15071210713.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100820/15071210713.shtml agreeing to buy The Pirate Bay as part of a plan that never made any sense to try to "legitimize" it. It wasn't long before many folks realized that the whole thing seemed questionable, and there were all sorts of allegations of insider trading and other questionable behavior in the sale. And, of course, as people waited for the one thing that mattered (the money) it became clear that the deal was falling through.

A few months back, however, Pandeya showed up again, this time in the US rather than Sweden, with a new company called Business Marketing Services, which was the result of Pandeya taking over the OTC stock symbol of an effectively defunct penny stock. However, he claimed he was still buying The Pirate Bay, supposedly from GGF -- except of course, GGF never actually owned The Pirate Bay, so the whole thing appeared to be a joke. Pandeya took exception to our coverage, demanded we correct the errors in the post, though he refused to explain what was in error. He also told us that he had "put the acquisition on hold," which is a funny thing to say when there's no evidence that there was any actual acquisition in the first place.

It looks like Pandeya's at it again, telling TorrentFreak that he's buying the BitTorrent community Demonoid. But, again, this appears to be wishful thinking. Demonoid hasn't agreed to any deal. Pandeya appears to be representing GGF again, and claims he now has money. It's not clear what happened to "Business Marketing Services," of course. Pandeya still talks big, saying he'd still like to acquire The Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, and claims that this time he's got money -- but he's said that before and these things haven't panned out.

So, a basic tip for Mr. Pandeya: talking about buying a website is not the same as actually buying that website. Also, saying you have cash is not the same as actually having the cash. So far, we've seen lots of claims from Mr. Pandeya, but no real follow through, so it's difficult to believe that this time around it will be any different.

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]]> just-so-you-know... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100820/15071210713