With ad revenues from the entire planet the bottom line is even more attractive. The money is channeled through a company in Switzerland sharing an address with another company specialising in tax planning.The controversial file sharing site The Pirate Bay is far from the innocent hobby project cofounders Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm want people to think.

The police investigation of The Pirate Bay is about violations of copyright law because the file sharing site helps Internet users share files with copyright protected material.

The police will investigate how ad revenues are managed and if tax is paid. If the prosecutor can show that the site is being run commercially the suspects risk a harder punishment than if it’s just a hobby project.

‘The authors of the law spoke of one year in prison. The maximum penalty is two years’, says prosecutor Håkan Roswall.

The past four months the Swedish company Eastpoint Media have sold ads for The Pirate Bay for an average of €60,000 per month, according to sales manager Luar Busó. The police raid on 31 May resulted in even more visitors to the site and prices for ads went up accordingly.

‘The biggest ads today cost €20,000 and so far we’ve sold four’, says Luar Busó.

Eastpoint sell ads for The Pirate Bay in the Scandinavian market. File sharing is most widespread in Sweden where many people have broadband. But The Pirate Bay runs in twenty five different languages and gets visitors from all corners of the planet.

In other countries other ads are shown. The total revenues are therefore much more than what Eastpoint arrange.

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