As the trial of ‘The Pirate Bay Four’ comes ever closer, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, aka ‘Anakata’, speaks out on TV news. Dubbed by the report as the brains behind The Pirate Bay, Gottfrid is said to run a site that is ‘the scourge of the film and music industries’. “It’s not stealing, morally or legally” he said.

Now that the Pirate Bay trial is drawing ever closer, more and more mainstream news outlets are starting to report on the upcoming case, mostly with heavy anti-piracy bias.

Born in 1984 and co-owner of the Swedish ISP ‘PRQ’, the report says that Gottfrid, aka Anakata, has been interested in computers since he was just 6 years old and although he wasn’t with the ‘in crowd’ when he was growing up, many in cyberspace view him as a hero. As a fellow C64 veteran back in the day, I guess we have a slightly different perception of where the ‘in crowd’ actually was

Now accused of conspiracy to break copyright law, Anakata has decided to speak out about “the battle against greedy corporate America.” He points out that under Swedish law, they have committed no crime as they do not directly transfer any copyright material themselves. The news report refers to many people across Stockholm “illegally downloading music and films”, actions which of course are down to those individuals, not The Pirate Bay. It is precisely this situation which leaves ‘The Four’ to genuinely believe they are operating within the law in Sweden. Read the rest of this entry »