The Pirate Bay admits links with right-wing benefactor

'We needed the money'

By Jan Libbenga • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 7th May 2007 17:47 GMT

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A spokesman for the Swedish torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, has admitted on Swedish tv that their servers and broadband bandwidth were financed by Carl Lundström, one of the alleged sponsors of Swedish far-right political party Sweden Democrats. "We needed the money," spokesman Tobias Andersson told Bert Karlsson, a former politician and front figure of the New Democracy (Ny Demokrati) party.

Carl Lundström is the CEO and largest shareholder of Rix Telecom, a large provider in Sweden, where at least one member of The Pirate Bay used to work.

Lundström is also believed to be a major financier of Sweden Democrats, a nationalist movement which opposes all forms of racism. However, it was also modeled after other "euronationalist" parties, most notably the French National Front. Several members have criminal records or extremist connections. "I think he liked file sharing," Tobias Andersson said about Lundström.

Almost a year after a police raid on the Pirate Bay's servers, a Swedish prosecutor last week announced that he intends to press charges against the individuals behind the file-sharing site for violating copyright. Tobias Andersson says he expected a move of this kind and doesn't believe that it stands a chance in the courts. The Pirate Bay, Andersson argues, merely points to other pages, and doesn't contain copyright protected material.

Just last week the torrent tracker announced a new all-you-can-download music site with members of the Swedish rock band Lamont. ®

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