The man who wanted to purchase The Pirate Bay also attempted to purchase Mininova, it has emerged. In the fall of last year, Global Gaming Factory (GGF) agreed to buy The Pirate Bay. The company aimed to turn it into a legal music downloading site. At the same time, however, GGF’s CEO Hans Pandeya had “finalized a contract last summer” to also acquire Mininova.
In August 2009, Pandeya cackled to TorrentFreak that he would “try to buy as many torrent sites as possible.” His deal with Mininova rested on the outcome of a case brought against the torrent index in the Netherlands. The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, who took the case to court, won and Mininova was forced to remove all copyright-infringing torrents. Consequently, the deal fell through.
Clearly Pandeya’s deluded aim was to monopolize the market in legal music downloading (hasn’t he heard of iTunes?). By acquiring both The Pirate Bay and Mininova, he hoped to grab the two most popular file-sharing sites and turn them into legal enterprises, hoping their millions of users would continue to use the sites. However, both deals collapsed.
This man’s unparalleled evil is truly chilling. In a licensing negotiation with one of the major labels in London, Pandeya explained to his colleague Wayne Rosso, “I’m going to buy Mininova too and eliminate all the competition.” He also told CNET that “I have a lot of secret plans I’m working on.” Holy shit! Run for the fucking hills!