back to article The Pirate Bay co-founder exits jail, now, er, free to eat vegan food

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has been set free after spending five months in a Swedish jail. Sunde is better known as Brokep and was collared earlier this year on a Swedish farm. He announced his freedom in the following tweet: My body just got re-united with my soul and mind, the parts of me that matters and that …

  1. El_Fev

    But..

    Piratebay still seems to be operating??

    1. FunkyEric

      Re: But..

      I know, shocking isn't it!

    2. Crisp
      Pirate

      Re: Piratebay still seems to be operating??

      DNS censorship solved the problem of the pirate bay once and for all.

      ONCE AND FOR ALL!

    3. Nextweek

      Re: But..

      They sold The Pirate Bay in 2009:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8127050.stm

  2. JDX Gold badge

    "My body just got re-united with my soul and mind, the parts of me that matters and that never can be held hostage"

    What? Surely that's the exact opposite of "you can imprison my body but not my spirit".

  3. John Tserkezis

    This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

    Meanwhile, drug dealers, murderers, rapists and child molesters are already out dealing, murdering, raping and molesting.

    I love it when society works like a, ahem, swiss watch...

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

      >>"Meanwhile, drug dealers, murderers, rapists and child molesters are already out dealing, murdering, raping and molesting."

      Would it be fair to say that there are more drug dealers, murderers, rapists and child molesters in the Swedish prison system than there are people for piracy?

      I'm pretty sure that there are lot of people who are engaged in piracy in Sweden and I'm also pretty certain that the percentage of these currently incarcerated is pretty bloody small. So unless you are arguing perhaps that conviction rates of pirates should be higher than the murders, et al., then your post makes little sense.

      You should be grateful poor knowledge of statistics isn't a crime.

    2. tony72

      Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

      To be fair, drugs and prostitution make a significant contribution to a country's economy (I couldn't be bothered looking for a specific link for Sweden, but I'm sure it's comparable to the UK), whereas piracy is probably a net drain on the economy. So at least the drug dealers and pimps probably have a case for being left alone. Bit harder to defend the murderers and rapists though :).

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

        You can't really drain an economy, you can merely change the distribution of who takes which percentage, overall the entire sum remains a constant.

        1. h4rm0ny

          Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

          >>"You can't really drain an economy, you can merely change the distribution of who takes which percentage, overall the entire sum remains a constant."

          Where on Earth did you get such stupid idea that wealth is a fixed constant? Makes you wonder why we bothered coming down from the trees and making fire given that our wealth back then was exactly the same as our wealth now. Clearly it was just a very unequal distribution and one monkey kept all the yachts and villas to himself.

          1. Khaptain Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

            @Harmony,

            Did you actually see something in the comment that stated "that wealth is a fixed constant". I think not, please read again and try to understand rather than remain up high in the tree....

            If you have a 1000$ to distribute there are many ways in which you can distribute it but you can not distribute more than the 1000$. Hence, the entire sum remains a constant. Therefore money spent on a car cannot also be spent of software. What I don't spend on software is availabe for other purchases. I am sure that you get the picture.

            I don't recall having mentioned anything about the accumulate total since the beginings of time, inflation rates, stock markets adjustements or variable interest rates in my original comment. The lack of these variables removes the insipid thought of "stupid idea of wealth as a constant "

            Most of the monkeys in the tree would have understood this, they were successful enough to climb down from the tree.

            1. h4rm0ny

              Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

              >>"Did you actually see something in the comment that stated "that wealth is a fixed constant". I think not,"

              Yes, you wrote: "You can't really drain an economy, you can merely change the distribution of who takes which percentage, overall the entire sum remains a constant."

              You said that only distribution of share in the economy changes, but that the entire sum of it is fixed. That is wrong.

              1. Khaptain Silver badge

                Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

                >You said that only distribution of share in the economy changes, but that the entire sum of it is fixed. That is wrong.

                I think that is quite obvious that we are talking about a fixed point in time and not over a period.

                Obviously over a period the economy will change.

                1. h4rm0ny

                  Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

                  >>"I think that is quite obvious that we are talking about a fixed point in time and not over a period."

                  Not really. You talk about the distribution of wealth changing. Change is by definition NOT talking about a fixed point of time. Is it your contention that wealth and its distribution must be measured on vastly different time scales? That's absurd because there's no good reason for it. Indeed, you have it backwards. Wealth has been concentrated in the hands of an elite for most of the modern era but has increased massively in just this century alone. You wrote rubbish. Now you're trying to say you wrote something else or add contexts that don't match what you wrote. It was a stupid and easily refuted statement that you made. Even if I allowed that you were trying to say something else, that would simply render it irrelevant to the point you were originally making.

                  1. Khaptain Silver badge

                    Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

                    Harmony, Lets have a look at my initial comment :

                    "You can't really drain an economy, you can merely change the distribution of who takes which percentage, overall the entire sum remains a constant."

                    In the above statement do you see the word "Wealth", no neither do I , so please stop referring to my usage of Wealth, I did not mention anything about wealth..

                    Wealth and economy are 2 different subjects even though that they posses a relation.

                    If you reread the comment - you will see that I spoke about the "distribution of percentages". When dealing with percentages it is a given that the sum of all percentages will be 100%.

                    I think it is obvious from my initial statement that the "economy" ie 100% of that which is in circulation, can never be more than 100% of itself. All that ever changes is how that economy is distributed. For example : 20% of the economy is held by the people, 40% by business and the remaining, 40% by the banks ( purely hypothetical figures) , not that the sum is of all that is available is 100%.

                    Tommorow this distribution of percentages might change, i.e. 43% to the people, 37% to business and the remaining 20% to the banks. Still this represents the same initial 100% percent of the economy..

                    All that has changed between the two scenarios of the "distribution of percentages". If the economy, at the given time, was worth 54 Trillion dollars in both scenarios this amount would not have changed.. Hence the usage of the word "constant".

      2. SolidSquid

        Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

        Actually, if you want to put ethics to one side then piracy is probably a net positive for the Swedish economy, since most of the things being pirated would be American produced and not paying for it would mean more money staying in Sweden to be spent on other things, rather than going to US companies

        1. h4rm0ny

          Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

          >>"Actually, if you want to put ethics to one side then piracy is probably a net positive for the Swedish economy, since most of the things being pirated would be American produced and not paying for it would mean more money staying in Sweden to be spent on other things, rather than going to US companies"

          Well yes, but that brings us neatly to something popularly called the Tragedy of the Commons. You can only manage a certain level of freeloading. And you could make the case that it would still be bad for Sweden in that quality would be dragged down due to less money. There are other things than price which impact our satisfaction with the market.

        2. Ole Juul

          Re: This is what it takes to get into the high security wing of your local clink.

          Actually, if you want to put ethics to one side then piracy is probably a net positive for the Swedish economy, since most of the things being pirated would be American produced and not paying for it would mean more money staying in Sweden to be spent on other things, rather than going to US companies.

          Exactly. This is done all the time. The state of California gets electricity from Canada and refuses to pay because they prefer to spend the money on other things. Keeping money from going out of a country is often considered good economics. There are freetards at all levels. Frankly, I think singling out file sharing borders on bizarre.

  4. h4rm0ny

    Does Sweden have much of a home-grown movie and music and games industry? Or let me provide a specific metric - if I were to check the top 100 pirated movies or music by Swedish residents each month, what proportion of that would be content produced in Sweden?

    The reason I ask is because if this person wants to stand politically on a platform of abolishing copyright in his country, I want to know whether he expects the impact to be felt by Sweden or other nations.

    1. SolidSquid

      Iirc the Pirate Party has a range of views on copyright from completely abolish it, through reducing the penalties and to reduce the term something can be copyright for. Couldn't say which of these he stands for, but any of them would be in violation of various trade agreements so would probably damage Sweden directly

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Does Sweden have much of a home-grown movie and music and games industry? "

      Off the top of my head.

      Films by Ingmar Bergman are probably still popular. Mostly they are art house and a tad depressing. The semi-autobiographical "Fanny and Alexander" was lighter - a Charles Dickens style story especially good at Christmas

      Then there was the recent horror film "Let the Right One In" . The Swedish one by Tomas Alfredson - not the Hollywood remake.

      On a lighter note - "My Life as a Dog" by Lasse Hallström.

      "Pelle The Conqueror" by Bille August was set in Denmark but includes a Swedish Film Industry attribution. Another story in the Dickens mould.

      Mostly available on DVD - all subtitled of course.

      1. asphytxtc

        > Then there was the recent horror film "Let the Right One In" . The Swedish one by Tomas Alfredson - not the Hollywood remake.

        An excellent film as well, ironically one I located on TPB after a recommendation and actually ended up buying on DVD! Never have an issue with paying for a genuinely good product.

        The remake was awful though...

        1. Alistair
          Coat

          @asphytxtc

          "The remake was awful though..."

          As is almost every single one of the hollywood *new* movies that are remakes of foreign content.

          Nope. That sentence is incorrect, please remove "almost"

          1. Sandtitz Silver badge

            Re: @Alistair

            Solaris wasn't awful at all.

            1. Mr Hugh Bris

              Re: @Alistair

              The fact that anyone even thought that they could remake a Tarkovsky film is awful. Enough said, I think.

              1. Sandtitz Silver badge

                Re: @Hugh

                "The fact that anyone even thought that they could remake a Tarkovsky film is awful. Enough said, I think."

                Let me guess: it starred Clooney so you disrelished the film automatically?

                Technically speaking it wasn't a remake of the Tarkovsky film but reimagining the original Lem novel.

    3. Sandtitz Silver badge

      @h4rm0ny

      "Does Sweden have much of a home-grown movie and music and games industry?"

      Some, I guess. Have you seriously never heard (of) Abba or Minecraft?

      "if I were to check the top 100 pirated movies or music by Swedish residents each month, what proportion of that would be content produced in Sweden?"

      I don't know. Is there such statistics even available?

      I guess you could check the Swedish music charts and see for yourself whether the Swedes listen the Swedish music.

      "The reason I ask is because if this person wants to stand politically on a platform of abolishing copyright in his country, I want to know whether he expects the impact to be felt by Sweden or other nations."

      What the hell are you talking about?

      First of all, the Reg article clearly states that the guy is a MEP candidate 'in his native Finland'.

      Second, the Finnish Pirate Party states in their manifesto amongst other things:

      "removing excessive copyright restrictions"

      That doesn't read to me as abolishing copyrights. Please explain your rationale.

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

    Wouldn't he be doing himself out of an income stream? What need for a piratebay if everything is available?

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

      Piratebay has generated a LOT of revenue over the years through advertising. It's biggest costs have resulted from having to dodge and fight all the legal issues. Legality would allow it to minimize all sorts of costs (for example where it can host) and not do anything to stop it being a central place for file sharing. Financial outcome for the Piratebay if copyright was suspended would be a positive.

      Well, until all the other nations of the world got sick of Sweden ripping off all the content generated by their citizens.

      1. tony72

        Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

        Getting rid of copyright doesn't necessarily mean not remunerating artists. For example schemes such as a form of tax or levy, with revenue distributed to artists based on some measure of popularity (perhaps some formula involving number of downloads and ratings) have been mooted. This is not such a crazy idea, since the taxpayer already supports the arts in various ways in most European countries, so this would just be taking that to the next level. I wouldn't want to get into the pros and cons of any particular scheme anyway, but it's unlikely that anyone advocating the abolition of copyright intends to do so in a vacuum.

        1. h4rm0ny

          Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

          >>"Getting rid of copyright doesn't necessarily mean not remunerating artists. For example schemes such as a form of tax or levy, with revenue distributed to artists based on some measure of popularity (perhaps some formula involving number of downloads and ratings) have been mooted"

          Ugh! Centralized funding of the arts by a state body. That always ends well! :/ Or of course it could be done by some centralized MPAA-like body that I'm sure would be all too happy to decide who and what gets paid and taking a big cut.

          If I am a musician or a film maker or a software writer, why should I be forced to sell through some governing body that decides for me how much I am worth? Why can't I sell directly to the public just because my profession happens to be one of these instead of, say, a green grocer. You wouldn't track how many vegetables a farmer sells and then give them a percentage cut of the total number of marrows sold that year in the country! And for good reason - it's restrictive, bureaucratic and simplistic. Maybe my costs are different. Maybe I sell to a smaller but more affluent market. If it costs a lot to get an orchestra together but classical music lovers are more affluent on average, how would I be shoe-horned into a "X plays = Y pennies" model? If I make a specialist film that is not much interest to most, but highly valued by a certain group, who are you to say I can't sell to them directly?

          Customer pays for what they want is vastly simpler than any centralized system, infinitely more reactive to actual desires and trends in what people want. Honestly, the only people such a mandatory model would appeal to are the RIAA / MPAA style bodies who would love that sort of power. And yes, it has to be mandatory if you're referring to it as an alternative to copyright.

          And if your model is an alternative to copyright, how invasive would you have to be to actually guess what people are listening to / watching?

          1. tony72

            Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

            It's not my model, and I'm not advocating any particular system personally, but you're kind of missing a few obvious points, so I'll bother with a very late reply.

            "Maybe my costs are different. Maybe I sell to a smaller but more affluent market. If it costs a lot to get an orchestra together but classical music lovers are more affluent on average, how would I be shoe-horned into a "X plays = Y pennies" model? If I make a specialist film that is not much interest to most, but highly valued by a certain group, who are you to say I can't sell to them directly?"

            Who says you can't? Not having copyright protection doesn't mean that you can't sell the product directly. Many artists already practically give away digital downloads of their works, but sell premium versions on vinyl or limited edition CD, with extras. Seems to work pretty well for them.

            "Customer pays for what they want is vastly simpler than any centralized system"

            Simple maybe, but look at the context here. Pirate Bay users aren't paying for what they want. It remains to be seen if someone can assemble the technical and legal machinery to put the piracy genie back in its bottle, but right now it's not looking good. If piracy can't be beaten, then a system that assures artists of some remuneration if they produce decent work is surely better than what they're earning from Pirate Bay users.

            "And if your model is an alternative to copyright, how invasive would you have to be to actually guess what people are listening to / watching?"

            Ridiculous argument. If downloading is legal, there's no trouble monitoring what gets downloaded, it's no different than the way download charts are assembled now. And a large percentage of people aren't shy about sharing what they watch or listen via social media; you can go to trakt.tv right now and see all the tv shows and movies trakt users, have watched in recent times, and their ratings, automatically scrobbled from their HTPCs and media players. Go look.

            1. h4rm0ny

              Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

              >>"Who says you can't? Not having copyright protection doesn't mean that you can't sell the product directly"

              Absence of copyright protection means a seller is competing with free for the same product. You have taken away whether or not there is a sale from being an agreement between producer and consumer, and made it wholly a choice on the part of the consumer. The producer of content has no say in whether or not their product is sold or taken. This impacts their ability to sell the product directly - obviously. Additionally the context of my reply was your proposal that producers receive their renumeration via some third-party arbitrator which determines how much they deserve. That undermines a sales model entirely. If someone is getting paid by the state to give me something, why would I buy it? Do you feel the need to pay your doctor extra when you go and see them? Or tip your civil servant? A mix of models doesn't work.

              >>"Simple maybe, but look at the context here. Pirate Bay users aren't paying for what they want. It remains to be seen if someone can assemble the technical and legal machinery to put the piracy genie back in its bottle, but right now it's not looking good. If piracy can't be beaten, then a system that assures artists of some remuneration if they produce decent work is surely better than what they're earning from Pirate Bay users"

              Such an argument cannot be used as an argument against piracy being harmful which is the position I am maintaining.

      2. NumptyScrub

        Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

        Well, until all the other nations of the world got sick of Sweden ripping off all the content generated by their citizens.

        Doesn't seem to have hurt China or Russia that much, and they are infamous for bootlegs. If anything it shows that content producers will actually adjust their distribution model to try and compete; R5s (aka Russian region DVDs) are often released early to try and combat the flood of dodgy cam rips burnt to DVD and sold on the streets.

        Unless you're suggesting that while Russia and China are big enough to get away with it, the US might invade Sweden "because piracy"? I'd say that would be an extremely long shot, although given the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan et al. I wouldn't necessarily put it past them :/

        1. Alistair
          Pint

          Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

          "I'd say that would be an extremely long shot, although given the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan et al. I wouldn't necessarily put it past them"

          Footnote to that, none of the listed nations had a truly functional military. I don't think you can say the same for Sweden. Might be an opportunity for popcorn and beer.

        2. Curtis

          Re: Does he actually *want* to remove copyright?

          No. We'd invade Sweden because of A) Swedish Women or B) Swedish Chocolate (helloo... 'Murica! Land of the Free and Home of the Fat?)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sue the prison?

    "the prison doesn’t offer any vegan food.”

    Sounds like a human rights abuse right there, they serve vegan food in British prisons. I'm surprised they don't in Sweden!

    1. Mikey

      Re: Sue the prison?

      Actually, that's a nice little incentive not to do something stupid and end up back in there.

      Conversely, they could force all non-vegans to eat nothing but vegan food for their duration, and they'll all be too weak and listless upon release to do anything criminal!

  7. Ralph B

    Copyright

    > he has long been interested in promoting his anti-copyright agenda.

    I look forward to reading (a stolen copy of) his autobiography one day.

    1. MyHandle256

      Re: Copyright

      > I look forward to reading (a stolen copy of) his autobiography one day.

      One day? You can download it now for free from http://watch.tpbafk.tv/

      Away From Keyboard, its a documentary movie about the founders of TPB, their stories and their legal battles. You can download it for free from the site via BitTorrent, obviously. They also have the option to buy it, and the site shows they've made $50,000 dollars from it so far.

      Its pretty brutally frankly honest as well, it shows that two of the founders have paid a heavy price. Sunde is the only one who comes out at the end relatively unscathed. The other two guys were archetypal nerds who were merely in it for the technical challenge, but the whole situation ends up too much for them. By the end, one of them has a severe drink problem and the other is a junkie. Im sure the more Daily Mail minded readers will be thinking "good, thats just what they deserve", but if so, lets just hope that your son or daughter is mentally strong enough to deal with wherever their choices in life take them.

  8. Alistair Dabbs

    Jailbird politicians

    I'm impressed that these pirates chose to do their time behind bars before going into politics. Normally, politicians do it the other way around.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    With any luck...

    ...he'll be back in prison soon and for a long, long time for his crimes.

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