Domain names are key assets for all websites and should be protected at all costs. This isn’t too complicated as registrars often offer the option to auto-renew domains.
Even if that’s not the case, the domain registrant will still receive several warning emails before their domain is released back to the public.
Despite these fail-safe systems, some prominent Pirate Bay domains lapsed a few weeks ago. They include Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com, which were previously both owned by the official Pirate team. Although they were never used as main domains, they are certainly valuable.
After the domains failed to renew they were picked up by Dropcatch.com, a service that specializes in securing ‘lapsed’ domains. They were subsequently put up for auction. On Tuesday, Piratebay.org was sold for $50,000 and yesterday ThePiratebay.com brought in $35,150.
That’s a lot of money for domain names that someone simply forgot to renew. This is something The Pirate Bay team appeared to realize as well. Shortly after we reported on the first auction, the registration period for the official ThePiratebay.org was extended until the next decade.
A week ago, ThePiratebay.org was set to expire during the summer of 2022. This was first extended until 2023 last Thursday, and shortly after another seven years were added. At the time of writing, the domain is set to expire on June 28, 2030.
While the TPB team hasn’t publicly commented on the domain extension or the lapsed domains, it seems obvious that there’s a connection. With the official domain name locked up for another decade the team can rest assured for a while.
For now, there doesn’t appear to be any direct competition from the two lapsed domains. While these could in theory be used to compete with the official site, that’s not likely to happen.
At the time of writing, Piratebay.org still promotes the mysterious “Torrent Man” film project, which offers to sell the domain for $1.9 million.
We reached out to the domain owner last week who promised to get back to us, but we have yet to receive any further details. It’s possible that this ‘project’ is simply a stunt to draw attention to the domain.
ThePiratebay.com is no direct threat either. TorrentFreak spoke to the domain broker who bought it at auction yesterday for $35,150. He plans to monetize the domain through standard advertising feeds, without hosting or linking to any copyright-infringing material.
Both Piratebay.org and ThePiratebay.com are not “faillisted” by Google, so they can be monetized with high-quality ads.
The fact that domain brokers are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for Pirate Bay domains that were never actively used shows how valuable they are. One domain expert informed TorrentFreak that these figures still pale in comparison to what would be paid for the official domain.
In other words, extending the domain registration for a decade is a wise move.
