Peter Sunde, one of the four co-founders of The Pirate Bay, said Monday he is abandoning ship.

Sunde, the BitTorrent tracker's spokesman, and his fellow colleagues each are facing a year in prison following their spring convictions for facilitating copyright infringement. They remain free pending the outcome of an appeal of their Stockholm convictions.

The departure of Sunde, known online as "brokep," perhaps is the strongest indication to date that the proposed $7.7 million sale of The Pirate Bay to a Swedish software concern is to be completed within weeks as planned.

Global Gaming Factory, its buyer, claims the 5-year-old Pirate Bay will become a legitimate, pay-to-play site for media such as movies, software, music and games. The goal, however lofty it sounds, is to convert the site's 20 million pirates into fee-paying consumers.

"Today marks the end of a small era for me, but I am simply leaving a role in order to be a person instead," Sunde said.

He said, "a book is waiting to be finalized and many more books are waiting to be read."

If he loses his appeal, he'll have plenty of time to write that book.

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