The Pirate Bay: 'We Have Created a Forum for Information Sharing'

Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, two of the BitTorrent tracker site's founders, discuss who they are, what The Pirate Bay's all about, and what it really means to be a pirate.

After the recent SVT, a Swedish TV media outlet, debacle in which several members of The Pirate Bay were ambushed on camera by the father of slain children whose publicly available autopsy photos were uploaded to the BitTorrent tracker site, they declared that there were "No more media relations" and that they had "...decided to suspend all of our contacts with the press for the time being."

Soon after they publicly aired their complaint, SVT apologized for the matter and expressed regret that "An invited debater felt misled."

With SVT's admission of guilt it would seem that The Pirate Bay would lift its ban on media relations and a recent interview that Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, two of the BitTorrent tracker site's founders, gave to Sweden's "The Local" confirms that.

In a piece humorously titled "Are they baby-eating monsters or what?," Sunde and Neij shed some interesting new light on who they are, what The Pirate Bay's all about, and what it really means to be a pirate.

“We’re not the recluse type; we're very social computer [nerds],” Neij apparently said with a smile.

So Who are They?

Fredrik Neij

• Age: 30


• Favorite movie: The Wall


• Favorite song: Fear of the Dark/Iron Maiden


• Favorite colour: Black


• Favorite food: Chili Con Carne, very spicy (Eats out 95 percent of the time)


• Idol: Quagmire in Family Guy


• Day job: IT-consultant, operates a web hosting company


• First job: Summer job at a factory


• Education: High school drop-out


• Something you don’t think people know about you: A lot, I hope.

Peter Sunde

• Age: 30


• Favorite movie: Donnie Darko


• Favorite song: Bougé Bougé/Magic System


• Favorite colour: Right now, yellow


• Favorite food: Pasta, the way I make it (Considers himself a great cook)


• Idol: I respect a lot of people, but have no particular idol


• Day job: IT-consultant, builds web sites and gives lectures


• First job: Summer job at a cemetery


• Education: High school drop-out, finished his school exams later


• Something you don’t think people know about you: I used to be a real good soccer player.

What's The Pirate Bay All About?

“We believe in freedom of speech and the right to free communication between private individuals,” Sunde says

“It seems as if many people have a hard time understanding that we have created a forum for information sharing; we’re not actually posting any of the material on TPB ourselves.”

That's always been the kicker that has prevented entertainment industry cartels, mainly from the US, from shutting down The Pirate Bay over copyright infringement claims. Since it doesn't actually host any content, but rather only NONCOPYRIGHTED .torrent files, Swedish law has rightfully protected them.

“The idea [behind the The Pirate Bay] is to enable anyone and everyone to share information, no matter what type of information, to whomever they want without being censored or moralized over,” Sunde continues.

What Does it Really Mean to be a Pirate?

“We try to let people understand the good things ‘pirates’ can do (we use the name ‘pirates’ to reclaim the word and make it positive) and to put the power of people in their own hands instead of the traditional media industry that edits the content that is out there," notes Sunde.

For him, as it should be for the rest of to be quite honest, piracy is a means to regain control of the words, the images, and the sounds that fill our daily lives. If the entertainment industry had its way consumers would be made to pay for each time they read, saw, or heard anything of which it deemed profitable.

I think Sunde's right, and that it's high time we recognized that being a pirate isn't what the MPAA and RIAA tells everyone it is. Pirates aren't funding terrorism or putting actors or musicians out of work, they are simply being a necessary relief valve to highlight a market failure.