The Pirate Bay will no longer be hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party, due to mounting legal pressure from a domestic anti-piracy group representing the entertainment industry. According to TorrentFreak, the file-sharing site will now be hosted with support from the pirate parties in Norway and Spain, where it may find more favorable legal environments.

In October, the Pirate Bay relocated its operations to the cloud as part of an effort to evade police raids and the location of its headquarters remains unknown, though it has continued to use web hosting services provided by the Swedish Pirate Party. Earlier this month, however, the Pirate Party was threatened with a lawsuit from Sweden's Rights Alliance, which represents the movie and music industries. The Rights Alliance gave the pirates until February 26th to cut ties with the Pirate Bay, forcing the site to come up with a backup plan.

Earlier today, the Pirate Bay finally cut ties with its Swedish allies, and shifted its web hosting services to Norway and Spain. "TPB did of course have lots of backup transit lined up for ages. This is however the first time we are going to show two at the same time," The Pirate Bay’s Winona told TorrentFreak. "It will be interesting to see who is now blamed for hosting TPB. In the end, maybe the anti-interneterians will understand that they can’t win a fight when they have the people against them."

The organization's choice of relocation was likely informed by legal precedent in each country. In 2010, entertainment industry groups failed to force a Norwegian ISP to block the Pirate Bay, while Spanish courts have thus far been reluctant to take action against file-sharing sites, on the grounds that linking to other platforms is not a valid basis for copyright liability.

Source