Somebody's going to great lengths to tie the famed free-wheeling, file-sharing crew to far-right extremists, a claim which it not only dismisses as pure rubbish but, counters that it has "one political opinion - share your files, your culture."

The story really starts back on March 3rd of this year when somebody named "themaintruthdude," apparently trying to spread his version of what the "main truth" is, posted a roundtable discussion video on YouTube in which several of the participants questioned The Pirate Bay's alleged "ties" to right-extremist groups.

The video was then reported on first in Germany's Der Spiegel and then the UK's The Register.

The article in Der Spiegel is the one that really goes to great pains to make The Pirate Bay appear as though it has links to right-wing extremist groups vis a vis Carl Lundström, the man responsible for providing the free bandwidth and server space that made it possible to launch The Pirate Bay in the first place. It tries to connect Lundström to The Pirate Bay in a way that goes above and beyond his admitted assistance in helping them start what would one day become the world's largest BitTorrent tracker site and borders on insinuating that he has ongoing ties with The Pirate Bay that border on the criminal.

For those of you who don't know, Carl Lundström is the CEO and largest shareholder of Rix Telecom, one of Sweden's largest ISPs. However, in his private life, Lundström also has a history of funding a couple of right-wing parties like Sverigedemokratema(The Swedish Democrats) for instance. Though, this is in addition to his financial support for The Red Cross, Save the Children Foundation, and The Liberal Party as well. I guess it's easier to find more people that will hate an alleged "right-wing sympathizer" than it is a left-wing one. We all know this is just as much the case here in The United States. But, does that mean is everyone supposed to stop working for the guy?

It was while Frederik from The Pirate Bay worked at Rix that it graciously supplied bandwidth and server space for The Pirate Bay to open up shop. It has never received "...neither servers nor money from Rix, and only bandwidth and server space." The effort was initiated and conducted on an employer and employee basis with the former allowing the latter the "...the possibility to pursue a private project, in this case The Pirate Bay." When Frederik left the company its support with free bandwidth and server space also ended.

Furthermore, as Brokep over at The Pirate Bay pointed out to me, "...we got free bandwidth for a while but, then, even before Frederik stopped working there, we started paying for it. Of course (we got it) at a cheaper price, but still, we paid for it. They didn't lose money on us."

What's also interesting to note here is what Magnus Eriksson of Piratbyran, the Swedish Bureau of Piracy dedicated to the free flow of culture and ideas, had to say about the article in Der Spiegel. He said that Der Spiegel never even contacted The Pirate Bay to get its side of the story for the article. "The only contact that existed was to Mikael Wiborg, but he has nothing to do with running pirate bay, just helped them provide legal advise. And he was not around at the time this happened." Guess the author already knew what sort of conclusions he wanted to make. What other reason could there be for a so-called "journalist" working for a MAJOR German publication claiming that he was "unable" to get a hold of anyone at The Pirate Bay? Zeropaid has nowhere near the resources at Der Speigel's disposal but, all it took was a measly 20 minutes and good old iRC. It really does make you wonder if he had a prior agenda if he was more interested in writing the article with his one-sided conclusions and facts rather doing some REAL journalism and presenting BOTH SIDES. I guess he's never heard of "Fair and Balanced."

Look at one of the headers in the article for instance, that reads "without Lundstroem no Pirate Bay." He reduces it to the simplest common denominator, that they owe it all to him and therefore are somehow beholden to him. But, is this really so? The deal only lasted for a short duration of Frederik's employment there, and may just have easily been brokered at another ISP or with the help of other contacts. Is free bandwidth and server space from an employer a good enough reason to make the malicious accusation that a group of individuals with different ideas, opinions, political and religious beliefs, even on the proverbial "blondes vs brunettes" argument I'm sure, are beholden to one man and his ideologies? I think not.

In the video that the Der Spiegel article "analyzes," Bert Karlsson is the one who makes the insidious public claims about The Pirate Bay and its alleged ties to right-wing extremist group. He takes The Pirate Bay to task, actually making the incredulous claim to Tobias Andersson that perhaps it was never really "about the music, " that the real "...aim was to reach young people."

He says that "The Politicians loved the bit about the music, but the aim was to reach young people.

WTF? Yes, he tries to say that The Pirate Bay, under the guise of BitTorrent and file-sharing, is a front for reaching the masses and somehow spreading a right-wing ideology.

To note, Bert Karlsson is the owner and manager of the record company Mariann Grammofon, making him surely upset that Swedes, and the rest of the world for that matter, are freely sharing his content online but, does that justify allowing him to make such an amazing claim that the real intent of The Pirate Bay all along was to "reach young people" as part of some super secret right-wing cabal? It's not only ludicrous, it's downright shameful that a music label exec would resort to making such claims in order to somehow put the "file-sharing genie" back in the bottle.

Another panelist also asks Tobias if The Pirate Bay is some sort of political campaign as part of an effort to lure people to right-wing ideologies. Funny, but, the only thing political ideologies I've ever seen on The Pirate Bay is when they're thumbing their noses at these Karlsson types who continually try to do whatever it takes to get rid of them and the whole BitTorrent community.

Brokep and Martin over at The Pirate Bay had much to say about the whole affair, pointing out the irony and ulterior motives behind these baseless accusations.

In a blog posting on The Pirate Bay, Brokep writes:

On politics

People are always trying to figure out our political point of view. One moment we're getting called left-winged and the next right-winged, then left-winged again, right-winged again... It's funny to see that we actually matter that much to people.

Truth to be told - it's hard to say what WE are, since WE are not just one guy. We are lots of people. Some people vote left, some people vote right. Most of us probably don't vote at all. Some people care, others don't. And nothing has anything to do with The Pirate Bay.

From time to time we have political discussions within the group (not often, mostly we talk about beer, girls and cool new hardware)... we don't always agree on stuff. Not politics, beer, girls nor which is the coolest hardware. None of us though are in any way extreme in our political views.

The Pirate Bay itself has one political opinion - share your files, your culture. It's about technology that gives you your freedom.

It has also come to our attention that people within the IFPI and some extreme right-winged old has-been record label bosses are spreading rumours about us - and getting serious newspapers to write about it. It's called guilt by association - one of our previous ISPs (with clients like The Red Cross, Save the Children foundation etc) gave us cheap bandwidth since one of the guys in TPB worked there; and one of the owners have a bad rumour for his political opinions.

That does NOT make us in any way associated to what political views anyone else might or might not have. IFPI and the other antipirates cannot stop us with legal actions so they're trying to make us look bad instead. A couple of years ago they tried with calling us left-winged, now it's right-winged. Come on, make up your minds?

In an iRC chat, Martin hinted that it's part of an IFPI smear campaign, and that the video interview shown above was most likely initially posted on YouTube by somebody with links to the IFPI. It's purely speculative but, I think the fact that it was posted by a guy named "themaintruthdude" who has posted no other videos previous or since speaks for itself.

Moreover, first the IFPI started to refer to file-sharers as "file-traffickers," not because everybody hates traffic but, because it brings the connotations of drugs and other black market goods. With this new effort by the IFPI they're trying to paint a BitTorrent tracker site as a group of people with a culture and set values that nobody shares by trying to say that a brief relationship with a former employer makes them sympathetic to his way of thinking. Was The Red Cross and The Children's Foundation accused of being "right-wingers as well?"

Once again fellow "file-traffickers" out there, the IFPI and its frontmen never let a thing like the truth get in the way of its personal interests and a good smear campaign.

UPDATE:

I received an e-mail from Magnus Eriksson of Piratbyrån in which he seeks to clarify a few things and provide an update on the "mud-slinging" record exec.

Hi! This is Magnus quoted in the above mentioned article. I think it was a good article you wrote, just one detail that's not correct.



You write:

"However, in his private life, Lundström also has a history of funding a couple of right-wing parties like Sverigedemokratema(The Swedish Democrats) for instance. Though, this is in addition to his financial support for The Red Cross, Save the Children Foundation, and The Liberal Party as well."



Carl Lundström has not (as far as is known) given financial support to The Red Cross, Save the Children Foundation, and The Liberal Party. They are however customers of Rix Telecom. We mentioned it as to show that RIX is not some small fishy ISP but a large one with major clients. So if Bert thinks the connection between RIX and The Pirate Bay is suspicious, then the same accusations should be pointed at those clients as well.



Also Bert sold Mariann earlier this year and is now hosting "Fame Factory", a Swedish version of American Idol, providing a lucky few with slave contracts for record deals. :)

**** THX again to Magnus of Piratbyran, and to Brokep and Martin of The Pirate Bay for helping to shed some light on just what lengths people will go to try and tarnish the reputation of their opponents.

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