James Delahunty
19 Aug 2008 22:20
Responding to a request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the Swedish government for assistance in stopping recordings of the ongoing Beijing Olympics being shared, The Pirate Bay temporarily changed its name to The Beijing Bay and sported a new logo. The IOC had asked the Swedish government for direct intervention aimed at the notorious public BitTorrent tracker.
The Committee claims that over 1 million downloads containing footage from the Beijing Olympics resulted from them being tracked by the Pirate Bay. Most of the video downloads were of the long and controversial opening ceremony to the games. A logo showing a pirate ship attacking the IOC logo with canons appeared on the popular BitTorrent tracker temporarily.
The Swedish government has charged the operators of The Pirate Bay with copyright infringement offenses, but no date has been set for a trial to begin yet.