Today, exactly five years have passed since The Pirate Bay was raided by the Swedish police. At the time the entertainment industries hoped that this would silence the deviant BitTorrent site for good, but in hindsight we can conclude that they had actually awakened a monster. The raid and the ongoing battle that later unfolded reads like a script for an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster.

Just a few days ago The Pirate Bay upgraded its moderation backend to make it compatible with IPv6 addresses. This move was to ensure that the site is future-proofed and is a clear sign that the site’s current operators have no intention of shutting it down.

To most current users the following may not be a surprise, but for those aware of the site’s history know that without a few essential keystrokes five years ago, The Pirate Bay may have not been here today.

May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The officers were tasked with shutting down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

While the policemen were carrying out their jobs, Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid and Fredrik learned that something was seriously wrong. In the months before the raid they were already being watched by private investigators day and night, but this time something was about to happen to their trackers.

Fredrik recalls the day vividly: “I got a phone call like 10am in the morning, it was Anakata [Gottfrid].” He told Fredrik that there were police officers at their office, and asked him to get down to the co-location facility and get rid of the ‘incriminating evidence’, although none of it, whatever it was, was related to The Pirate Bay.

As Fredrik was leaving, he suddenly realized that the problems might be linked to their tracker, so he initiated a full backup of the site. At the co-location facility there were dozens of policemen, some in civilian clothing. Fredrik asked them: “Who are you? What are you doing here?” To which they responded: “Who are YOU? What are you doing here?” After questions back and forth, Fredrik eventually told them his name, and a police officer said, “Oh, we’ve been looking for you.”

Footage from The Pirate Bay raid

Although these events may seem almost comedic, Fredrik’s decision to start a backup of the site is probably the most pivotal moment in the site’s history. Because of this backup Fredrik and the rest of the Pirate Bay team were able to resurrect the site within three days. If there hadn’t been a recent backup, things may have turned out quite differently.

Technicalities aside, the determination to get the site back online as soon as possible set the defiant tone for the years that followed. Backups were spread over different countries to guarantee that the site would survive any attack, and although the site has gone down for 24 hours or more since the raid, this was usually caused by technical problems combined with laziness or wild parties. If they were shut down because of legal troubles, it usually took just a few hours to set up shop elsewhere.

Now back to 2006, when the Swedish police confiscated 180 servers, most of which had nothing to do with The Pirate Bay. After all the equipment was taken, Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid were escorted to the police station. During the subsequent questioning, the Pirate Bay trio gave up very little information. Gottfrid quickly confessed to his crime – of killing the Swedish prime minister when he was 2 years old – but that was all they got.

After the raid it became clear that the US had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s black list if they refused to deal with the Pirate Bay problem. Even the MPAA was involved, with John Malcolm, Executive Vice President of the MPAA, writing a letter to Sweden’s State Secretary in which he stated: “It is certainly not in Sweden’s best interests to earn a reputation among other nations and trading partners as a place where utter lawlessness with respect to intellectual property rights is tolerated.”

The raid eventually resulted in a lengthy investigation out of which the police generated 4000 pages of evidence against the people involved. The evidence was used by the prosecution during the Pirate Bay trial of 2009 and the appeal of 2010 where four people who were previously involved with the site were sentenced to jail time and significant fines.

The case is currently waiting to be appealed once again, this time at the Supreme Court. The site, meanwhile, is still up and running and it is larger than ever before. Right before the raid the site welcomed its one millionth registered user, today they have well over 5 million. It wouldn’t be far fetched to say that all the legal struggles have actually increased the site’s user base, instead of shutting it down altogether.

In 2008 The Pirate Bay team declared May 31st to be celebrated as a very special occasion for pirates.

“Let today be the pirates independence day!” they announced at the time. “Today we celebrate the victories we’ve had and the victories that will come. Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!”

And in 2011 they continue to make a case for file-sharing and for an open Internet. A few weeks ago they commented on the recent Internet censorship proposals in Europe and elsewhere, urging the public to defend their rights. It’s no longer a battle to keep The Pirate Bay online, they claim, but one in defense of the Internet.

Nevertheless, with a failed raid and several legal decisions against it, the site has grown to become the number one censorship target for a rapidly developing list of countries around the world. Draconian attempts to silence the site are looming on an ever-nearing horizon.

“The battle of Internets is about to begin,” The Pirate Bay team said.