The Pirate Bay update: Torrent site next on authorities' shutdown list?

Wikimedia Commons/The Pirate Bay

While some torrent sites have already been shut down, The Pirate Bay is still going strong, despite a shaky online presence and the threat of legal hurdles. However, it seems that the torrent site's days are numbered as authorities crack down on illegal file sharing.

According to Tech Times, The Pirate Bay website was down again this week. Although users know that the website's online presence is not that stable, the frequency of downtimes for the website has been increasing these past few weeks.

The report mentioned that this worried long-time torrent users of the site. According to, IBTimes, an increase in the frequency of downtimes could indicate that the website is close to shutting down.

If the shutdown takes effect, this will not be the first time that The Pirate Bay closes down for a couple of months. Back in 2014 up to the early months of 2015, the torrent site was down due to authorities raiding TPB's servers in Europe.

However, with reports that international copyright companies are banding together to take down torrent sites, the situation may not be the same this time around. The Pirate Bay still has a legal battle going on in Sweden, where companies such as Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music brought to court Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget, hoping to block users from accessing TPB. The case is still ongoing.

The Pirate Bay is one of the very first sites to offer torrent, going as far back as 2003. Recently, TPB was listed as one of the most used file-sharing sites by torrent seekers, together with Kickass Torrents. However, while torrent traffic is still going on despite unstable connections, it was tempered by recent news that some known torrents sites have closed down for good, including YIFY, a file-sharing site known to offer quality movie torrents.