The Pirate Bay founder Gottfried Svartholm Warg spoke with Russia Today in a news segment that reveals details about Warg's legal strategy, headquarters, revenue earned by The Pirate Bay, and what the site will do if Warg is in fact jailed by Sweden for the charges of conspiracy to infringe copyright that he currently faces, despite the fact that The Pirate Bay hosts no infringing material. Rather, it is a torrent tracker which links to files on other people's computers that can be downloaded using special software, as you already know.
Highlights from the video (clip below):
- "Gottfried's been sat in front of a computer since he was six years old. He wasn't in with the cool kids at school, but thanks to The Pirate Bay, for many in the virtual world, he's a hero."
- The Pirate Bay founder Gottfried Svartholm Warg: "It is not stealing, not morally and not legally. [Under Swedish law] you are not actually committing a crime if you are just refer[ring] to pirated material. You need to actually take an active part in the sharing."
- "Warg sees himself as so untouchable he even set up his pirate HQ in the same building as Sweden's anti-piracy agency."
- A stack of printed out email between Pirate Bay users dating back to 2006 "seems to prove that The Pirate Bay is actually a multi-million dollar business with offshore accounts and trust funds all over the world." The emails "detail advertising contracts for the website, organized through a partner in Tel Aviv, and offshore accounts in the Virgin and Channel Islands."
- Ludwig Werner, CEO of the Bonner Amigo Group: "They make millionsof dollars with other people's content without paying, so I think theyare just as bad as any Hollywood industry or major record company.
It's all about greed."
- If Warg goes to jail, he says, The Pirate Bay will move to another country where the laws are more lenient.
Here's the news segment in its entirety:
(via hypebot)
