loveislife: TorrentFreak Email Update

Saturday, February 26, 2011

TorrentFreak Email Update

Pirate Bay Documentary Gets Government Funding

Posted: 25 Feb 2011 07:15 AM PST

tpb afk In 2003 three computer addicts came up with the idea of starting a new file-sharing site using the then relatively new BitTorrent protocol.

The Pirate Bay was born, and as of today it is still the most visited torrent site of all time. But how did Anakata, Brokep and Tiamo- three guys from Sweden – turn into Hollywood’s worst nightmare?

What drove them to mock copyright holders, how did they deal with the private investigators who were watching them, and what makes The Pirate Bay so special?

To answer these questions and more, Swedish filmmaker and producer Simon Klose started making a documentary about the site’s founders titled 'TPB-AFK'. For the film, Klose followed the three both during the 2009 Pirate Bay trial and the appeal last year, as well as the months in between.

In order to complete the project Klose started a Kickstarter campaign last summer, and not without success. The initial goal of $25,000 was met in just three days and $51,424 was raised in total during the month long fundraiser.

The filming of the documentary has now been completed and Klose is currently working on editing it into the final product. To assist him during these last steps, the Swedish Government has chipped in with a financial injection in the form of a 200,000 Swedish kroner ($31,325) grant (pdf).

“I feel really honored getting 200,000 kroner from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee,” Klose told TorrentFreak. “The money, together with the Kickstarter share, will go to editing the film with a Danish editor.”

The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, which falls under the Ministry of Culture, awarded 141 persons with a theater or film project, of which Klose’s TPB-AFK is one.

“If TPB AFK can shed some light on how an open Internet can benefit artists, maybe the current Swedish government’s schizophrenic Internet policy can change too,” Klose told us. “On one hand they praise internet activists that help spread democracy in the Middle East, on the other they actively oppose the same activists building an open Internet in Sweden.”

In the coming months the documentary will be finished and eventually released to the public. Needless to say, a copy will be available on The Pirate Bay as well.