The Pirate Bay has been sold—and the new owners plan to make it a legal service that allows "content providers and copyright owners [to] get paid for content that is downloaded via the site."

Global Gaming Factory X AB, a Swedish firm that runs Internet cafes and game centers, plans to buy The Pirate Bay for 60 million kronor, twice the fine that was slapped on The Pirate Bay defendants by a Stockholm court earlier this year.

"The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world," said GGF CEO Hans Pandeya. "However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers need faster downloads and better quality."

Not that the file-sharers in questions are necessarily pleased with the move; Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of the site admins, has been battling Twitter criticism all day (what we'll call "Twit crit"), and shows signs of obvious fatigue with the entire Pirate Bay saga. "People hate me now for wanting to pause the six year free work we've been doing. Feels unfair," he wrote.

"We have no energy left," says another message, and a third reads, "We've been fighting for five years. Where's the thanks?"

GGF's acquisition of the site will only be confirmed after the company board decides that "the acquired assets can be used in a legally [sic] and appropriate way." If it does so, GGF will take over thepiratebay.org domain in August.

IFPI, the global music trade group, tells Ars that it is cautiously optimistic about the deal. "We don't know the details and there are many questions to ask about how this will work in practice, but we would be delighted if this resulted in the Pirate Bay turning into a legitimate licensed service," said CEO John Kennedy.

In addition to The Pirate Bay assets, GGF will acquire Swedish company Peerialism, which has developed a "new data distribution technology" that is also backwards-compatible with BitTorrent. The Peerialism code will form the basis for the new version of The Pirate Bay,

While The Pirate Bay name comes mired in legal uncertainty, it's still one of the world's best known domains, and GGF is acquiring it for under $8 million—a bargain if it really does have a workable plan for crafting a P2P version of iTunes out of the site.

What do The Pirate Bay admins have to say about the sale? Here's their statement, worth quoting at length:

TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath its value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site. As all of you know, there's not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It's the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen. We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen! If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us. The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we're fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It's win-win-win. The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don't worry - be happy!

While content owners are sometimes derided even for attempting to shut down sites like The Pirate Bay and AllofMP3.com, the last few years have shown us that relentless legal and political pressure can in fact reduce such hubs to shells of their former selves.

The music industry has now realized the mistake it made in not cutting a deal with Napster a decade ago. Perhaps, with the change of direction at The Pirate Bay, all sides have a second chance to create an innovative P2P service that pays the artists and rightsholders who want to get paid (and offers fast distribution of all that other material musicians like Trent Reznor release freely).

Listing image by Photo by Tom