Founded in 2003 by “a couple of guys in a [internet] chatroom,” P2P file-sharing website, the Pirate Bay was responsible for coordinating half of the world’s bit-torrent traffic by 2009. With an estimated 22-25 million users downloading from the site at any one time, TPB is clearly a principal player. It’s claimed that major motion picture studios suffered $6.1 billion losses at the hands of piracy in 2005. That’s the kind of thing that puts a trio of Swedish tech-geeks firmly in the sights of Hollywood’s big guns. Their ongoing trial is the focus of Simon Klose’s documentary, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard. Spanning a period of around 18 months, TPB AFK documents the continuing battle between the state prosecution in Sweden and the site’s runners Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, and Peter Sunde. February 2009 saw the three partners embark on their crusade against the machinery of the movie industry and what they view as stagnant copyright law in the modern information age. The trials and tribulations of the following year and a half take their toll on all three young men in different ways.
Directed by Simon Klose; Produced by Martin Persson
Screenplay by Simon Klose
With: Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde