As IPRED became law, the founders of The Pirate Bay launched a VPN—cheekily titled IPREDator—that promised to protect users’ details for $5 a month. It either didn’t have the desired effect or the Bay didn’t persuade enough users to come on board—this victory will embolden a range of entertainment and software rights holders in Sweden and elsewhere as they look to claw back revenue lost to piracy.

Also, Sunde says on his his blog that a date has finally been set for the founders’ appeal against a criminal conviction for assisting copyright infringement in May. Sunde doesn’t know when it is, plus the Bay is still waiting to hear where the case will be heard. He claims the EU is considering whether the case can be heard at all and that it remains possible it could “absolve us immediately”.

It remains to be seen whether Global Gaming Factory X, the company hoping to secure an improbable and much troubled acquisition of the Bay, will support the founders’ appeal or try to distance itself from them if it does manage to re-launch the site as a legal file-sharing service.