AfterDawn: News

Prosecutors: The Pirate Bay makes $4 million a year

The infamous torrent Tracker The Pirate Bay which has been back in the news recently because Swedish prosecutors have dragged them into court after complaints from Warner Bros., Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI just had its first day in court.

One of the early surprising situations that has occurred is the fact that Swedish prosecutors are claiming that the Pirate Bay makes $4 million USD a year from advertising alone. The site does not host any of the files making that figure even more impressive.



Currently, TPB tracks one million BitTorrent files, has over 2.5 million registered users and has even peaked at "more than 10 million simultaneous users downloading files at one time." Those numbers are not so great for advertisers but it seems in a volume business like BitTorrent, a big name like TPB is worth every cent.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 31 Jan 2008 16:44

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• 19 comments

• Hopium

  w00t!!! is all i have to say.
  EVERYONE PLZ GO BUY A T-SHIRT HELP EM OUT

  31.1.2008 17:30 #1

• fgamer

  Sadly in time TPB will suffer the same fate as many other popular torrent trackers. 4million dollars is allot of money for just running ads.

  31.1.2008 18:00 #2

• Hopium

  yeah but think of their legal fees. this isn't the first time they been in court :D

  31.1.2008 18:07 #3

• shummyr

  THis Awesome They are the one of the greatest torrent sites
  
  Shummyr

  31.1.2008 19:16 #4

• SatoSky

  4 million dollars a year, based on what evidence?

  31.1.2008 20:23 #5

• varnull

  Guesswork, as usual.
  
  This may just be the case that finally convinces people to stop buying ANY US made films and music... ever.
  

  
  
  Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work.... Commercial "pay for" software = made by software developers who want paying... see where I'm going with this?

  31.1.2008 20:51 #6

• skeil909

  Originally posted by varnull: Guesswork, as usual.
  
  This may just be the case that finally convinces people to stop buying ANY US made films and music... ever.That would be nice, sadly though, most people just don't care one-way or the other.

  31.1.2008 21:29 #7

• Tarmo78

  Originally posted by SatoSky: 4 million dollars a year, based on what evidence?
  Web Sheriff has clicked so many times on porn banners from that website. It has to be that much =)

  1.2.2008 00:08 #8

• Pop_Smith

  $4 million a year? Just for giggles I decided to checkout the ad prices and status for TPB and here they are:
  
  Prices:
  
  1-day link (approx. 266 clicks) - $44.21
  7-day (1,864 clicks) - $277.31
  30-day (7,989 clicks) - $1,061.14
  
  Other fun information:
  
  6,000,000+ pages views per day
  1,100,000+ unique visitors per day
  Alexa Rank: 152 (according to AdBrite) 146 according to the actual Alexa site.
  40% of advertisers re-purchase an ad
  AdBrite member since Oct. '05
  
  Last but not least (and probably no surprise) most traffic comes from Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.
  
  One funny fact, AdBrite has TBP listed under "Games -> General".
  
  
  Anyway, even with $1k/month ad prices I couldn't see them making $4 million even with the ads they have plus AdSense.
  
  Maybe something around $500k tops, and thats if each individual link is its own ad.
  
  Peace

  1.2.2008 01:46 #9

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: $4 million a year? Just for giggles I decided to checkout the ad prices and status for TPB and here they are:
  
  Prices:
  
  1-day link (approx. 266 clicks) - $44.21
  7-day (1,864 clicks) - $277.31
  30-day (7,989 clicks) - $1,061.14
  
  Other fun information:
  
  6,000,000+ pages views per day
  1,100,000+ unique visitors per day
  Alexa Rank: 152 (according to AdBrite) 146 according to the actual Alexa site.
  40% of advertisers re-purchase an ad
  AdBrite member since Oct. '05
  
  Last but not least (and probably no surprise) most traffic comes from Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.
  
  One funny fact, AdBrite has TBP listed under "Games -> General".
  
  
  Anyway, even with $1k/month ad prices I couldn't see them making $4 million even with the ads they have plus AdSense.
  
  Maybe something around $500k tops, and thats if each individual link is its own ad.
  
  PeaceAdd donations and I can see that number double or triple sever costs can be 100K a year easily with that much bandwidth and hardware going about, hen tack on donations to file sharing orgz that lobby to make it legal and legal costs..sure they have money but they live monthly like the rest of us.

  1.2.2008 02:05 #10

• Pop_Smith

  Ah, thats true ZippyDSM, I forgot about donations. :p

  1.2.2008 02:24 #11

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: Ah, thats true ZippyDSM, I forgot about donations. :pYa but lets not mince words they GIVE to thos orgz not the other way round, butthey do get donations the trick is they either use that money for up keep or give it to fight the media mafia.

  1.2.2008 02:27 #12

• domie

  Quote:Originally posted by Pop_Smith: Ah, thats true ZippyDSM, I forgot about donations. :pYa but lets not mince words they GIVE to thos orgz not the other way round, butthey do get donations the trick is they either use that money for up keep or give it to fight the media mafia.or they do what was reported and confirmed in the Swedish Press - 2 of the 4 charged bought luxury houses in the centre of Stockholm at prices between $ 750,000 - $ 1 million over the last two years.
  
  either way the true profits will come out in court as they will gain access to all their financial records, kept, hidden or whatever and then we can judge for ourselves instead of speculating.

  1.2.2008 06:08 #13

• ZippyDSM

  Quote:Quote:Originally posted by Pop_Smith: Ah, thats true ZippyDSM, I forgot about donations. :pYa but lets not mince words they GIVE to thos orgz not the other way round, butthey do get donations the trick is they either use that money for up keep or give it to fight the media mafia.or they do what was reported and confirmed in the Swedish Press - 2 of the 4 charged bought luxury houses in the centre of Stockholm at prices between $ 750,000 - $ 1 million over the last two years.
  
  either way the true profits will come out in court as they will gain access to all their financial records, kept, hidden or whatever and then we can judge for ourselves instead of speculating.True,i wouldn't doubt theres some...err..umm... nice life styles going on, prehaps not that decadent, but sooner or later it shall be known.

  1.2.2008 06:10 #14

• zzzzack

  If the pirate bay can make that much money off of ads and donations isn't it a good sign that the big companies should maybe take up a similar business model? I know some of them are but come on!

  1.2.2008 10:46 #15

• BludRayne

  That's some expensive advertising costs! I wonder who would pay TPB so much money. I've never clicked on any of the ads, so I have no idea who is advertising. I prefer isohunt anways.

  1.2.2008 13:38 #16

• noncomjd

  Prosecutors: The Pirate Bay makes $4 million a year
  
  Big Deal. More power to them.
  
  As of her latest Court filing Briney Spears earns $737,868 a month http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20520293/ Who is overpaid?

  2.2.2008 13:55 #17

• agwild99

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: $4 million a year? Just for giggles I decided to checkout the ad prices and status for TPB and here they are:
  
  Prices:
  
  1-day link (approx. 266 clicks) - $44.21
  7-day (1,864 clicks) - $277.31
  30-day (7,989 clicks) - $1,061.14
  
  Knowing that what you are doing is driving the MPAA and law officials COMPLETELY INSANE, and getting paid for it - Priceless.

  4.2.2008 14:29 #18

• borhan9

  I love hearing news like this cause the more they try to find on tpb they are going to end up going on a wild goose chase that will have nothing at the end of the ride.

  22.2.2008 15:59 #19