I spoke to one of the founders of TPB earlier (Score 2, Interesting)

His name is Brokep over twitter here is what was said,

@brokep I think people are seeing the fact you lost the case and pretty much sold up afterwards as a bad thing.The money is talking here.

brokep@gully666uk so either there is 60M in a fund, or there is no site and no money. What's the preferred deal? We have no energy left.

@brokep You have done well to keep it up, but people mostly have reacted badly.Its pretty similar to napster and we know how that went.

brokep@gully666uk Yes, we're trying to avoid just that. It's just a site, we need to take the icon status away so lots of sites can replace that.

@brokep I applaud your stance , whether it succeeds only time will tell.You created the icon by taking on the riaa sadly they are winning.

brokep@gully666uk They're not winning. A cannon is now being loaded with money.

@brokep Let us both hope the cannon isn't firing blanks.Good Luck with your future endevors.

brokep@gully666uk Thanks. I'll need it. People hate me now for wanting to pause the 6 year free work we've been doing. Feels unfair.

gully666uk@brokep Everybody deserves to be paid for working.It's a fine line between love and hate.It's the way of the web sadly people expect allot

brokep@gully666uk I'm glad people have high expectations. But we're not that many people. And we've been fighting for a long time. We need help.

@brokep I hope you now can get the help you need.Me i am only one person with very little so from that point of view i understand why.

I think he makes some good points myself.