I Am Peter Sunde, co-founder of TPB, AMA

How much money have I lost because of this? Do I need it? God knows I certainly work hard enough to deserve it.

That said, thanks for making the world a better place.

Thanks yourself man. Keep doing good work!

Thanks for creating the pirate bay.

Thank you for making it something that people care about.

Who was the genius who replied to that cease-and-desist about Shrek?

Edit: Here's what I mean

Edit 2: I'm aware it says Anakata at the bottom, but I was asking from memory, so please stop telling me.

Probably Gotte. Most of the letters was either by him or our legal aid Mikael. I wrote a few as well, for the lulz.

If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?

Yes, I would have encrypted gottes harddrive for him.

What do you think of torrent justification that today's youth seems to have?

They should seed more.

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TPB is hosted in some sort of cloud thingie. I'm not involved today, so I'm not sure anymore. TPB being blocked in a country has, in every single attempt, given more traffic to it. It's like trying to shoot a black hole with an bow&arrow.

Is anything happening with an appeal for the #spectrial miscarriage-of-justice to European courts, either the EU Court of Justice or the ECHR?

Hey Rick, congrats again on the engagement :) They should reply within a few months actually. There are (as you blogged about) lots of new things going in our direction!

has gottfrid learned to encrypt his own email yet? or are you and Fredrik helping him

He has the longest cryptopassword I've seen. Took over a minute to type it in, and he's a fast typer. So yes. :)

What is your opinion on TPB AFK? I love the film but is there anything you dislike about it? Thanks for doing an AMA! :D

I have mixed feelings about it, quite heavily. I posted about it in my blog, it's kind of long-ish. I think Simon and his team left out a lot of things that I personally see as important. I think the trial parts are boring and for me TPB is so much bigger than just a few court cases. TPB is the people (not the crew - the users) and their experiences. I wanted them to have a movie.

What motivated you to create and maintain TPB?

Was the story about purchasing Sealand real? How would that have worked?

Motivation comes from the importance of freedom of information. Sealand was real! They just wanted too much money for it. We raised a lot, and I bought rain forest for the money in brasil somewhere. Tiamo was not happy with me wasting the money on "crap" (his view) and anakata laughed at me for believing in doing good.

Ok guys - I have to sleep. I'm a bit tired after two hectic days with the release of the movie. Thanks for ALL your questions, and I'll try to be back tomorrow and reply to the ones I missed. Really love reddit and I hope that you all keep sharing! Hugs, P

How would you recommend TPB users stay safe?

Using a condom, regular excersise and preferably eating only vegan food!

What's the best way/s to support TPB?

Starting a "competitor". We need to not just rely upon ONE site!

As one of the founders of one of the most popular sites on the Internet, do many people recognize you out in public?

A lot do, yes. But being from the northern part of europe, we have an unwritten rule of not acknowleding that we recognize someone, which I love. When I go to places (forums, conferences etc) people are more open with it, which is fine.

Please tell Reddit about Flattr. @ https://flattr.com/

I hate to brag - Flattr is super awesome and Reddit should integrate it for every upvote.

What is the most infuriating thing a producer or lawyer has ever said to you?

"You've raped me, my friends, my kids, my mother and father, then you spit me in the face and tell me to love it." It was one of the top people at a record company in Sweden. I left the meeting two hours later and the guy told me that I'm probably going to hear from him when he needed a job. AFK TROLLING.

Do you regret any of your actions pertaining TPB (etc) ?

No. YOLO!

Man, I gotta say, I love how firmly you guys stand up for yourselves. Are you ever worried about your enormous balls pulling planets out of their orbit?

You know that leap year thingie...?

Great movie!

anyway How are the rest of the guys doing, and how do you see TPB's future?

edit:spelling

Fredrik is fine, Gotte is locked up in Stockholm. TPB should die (I've said this for a few years) so that something good will replace it. Come on, it's 8 years old website with essentially no updates. There must be something better... !

Totally thought you created Trailer Park Boys. Found the truth, not dissapointed. Thank you for creating a very handy tool.

Trailer Park Boys is the better TPB, honestly. One of my top 3 shows. I'm usually jokng that TPB is three guys from the northern part of their continent. One drug addict, one drunk and then bubbles. Fits both TPBs..

Hey Peter! Looking at your startup Flattr, it seems that it is in line with your ideals of helping the world community, unfortunately it is not well known as of now and certainly does not compare to TPB. What is the team doing to grow Flattr so it can grow to the point of being a force on the internet like The Pirate Bay?

EDIT: For those who don't know, Flattr is a microdonation platform for easily supporting content creators that you think deserve compensation for their hard work!

Well, the problem for flattr is that internet has become very centralised. A lot of people are trying to fix that through technology but also by setting up partnerships with sites that control information (facebook, youtube etc). The biggest thing we need to make sure is that we take back that control from these corporations and make a more open network.

How is Flattr doing? I think it's an excellent idea for giving back to content creators, but I don't see it everywhere. Is it still growing?

It's growing and thanks for liking it! It's hard to get sites to allow it though, because everyone thinks there's a catch. Too good to be true, kind of thing. If you want to help, tell sites to add support for flattr!

has the piratebay considered hosting from international waters?

We tried buying a country a few years back. Then a year ago or so I know that some guys set up flying drones in international waters with radiolinks.

Do you, anakata and TiAMO get any money for being involved in TPB AFK?

Nope. I think we've rather lost money on traveling places to help with the film.

What country has the highest download rate from you? The highest mirror/host rate?

When I was active the biggest countries was US/UK/SE for historical and internetical reasons.

Who is keeping TPB running now?

Winston.

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If you ask any of the others, they will say they are the only sane ones. It's all in the eye of the beholder!

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Cheapest computers available, sometimes without chassis (too expensive). Writing fast code was key.

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We're still on plan A, no need for plan B. Yet!

What OS/Hardware/Smartphone do you use?

Laptop I run a macbook air (I travel a lot so it's great). I use a nokia n9 because of the openness. But I try to not use a tracking device, sorry smartphone, at all.

Why did you start The Pirate Bay?

It was started because it was fun. That's kind of always what happened with the things started by Piratbyrån. To piss someone off has sometimes been a motive as well.

this may seem a broad obtuse question but: is The Pirate Bay now what your previously thought it would be?

I would have hoped it was gone already. I think that we need to have less single points of failures - which TPB kind of is. All the other file sharing sites are centralised or dependent on TPB.

When they got Kim DotCom did it worry you guys a bit?

We already had our "hit". It worried me that I didn't have as much cool stuff and war rooms as he has.

who was your favorite actor to work with, when creating/filming "Trailer Park Boys"

Ricky. I also had a crush on Lucy.

Could you beat Bert Karlsson if you took a cage match? How would you finish the match?

15 years ago he actually parked on my parking spot. I told him that if he doesn't move his car within 3 seconds I would smash it to pieces and burn it to the ground. He moved it directly. Kind of already won.

What do you think about Aaron Swartz's suicide? I find him and your lot devoting your life doing the same thing (i.e. awesome things).

I was really sad when I got to know about it. I've written quite a few articles for scandinavian news papers about it, and also on my blog. Aaron and I shared lots of friends and devotion, I'm really sad for the people closest to him. He's really going to be missed, not only as an internet freedom fighter, but also by his friends.

Hey Peter, thanks for doing this AMA.

Do you have any areas of interest in which you are planning to work in the future?

I'm planning to fix the payment industry right now, doing some boring artwork and I also want to go with the Sea Shepherds to antarctica and hunt those fucking japanese whalers. If the sea shepherds will have me :)

Do you think it's been worth it? I mean you've pretty much ruined your life in Sweden economically, I know there's ways to circumvent it - but still.

Who cares about financial life in Sweden. I have good friends that help me if I need help, and I don't live in Sweden.

What is your opinion on Free Software movement and FSF?

I love them. There was shots of me discussing a lot with Richard Stallman in some cuts of TPB AFK but was cut out. Hopefully they'll be extra material so you can hear his (clever) views on piracy as well.

I watched the film yesterday and I enjoyed it. I have also used TPB in the past and thought what a revolution it was. I studied in Germany (from USA) in 2003 and there was a guy in my dorm that would broadcast movies from his computer through the dorms to everyone's TV. I couldn't help but think how much trouble he could get in for doing that. Did you ever think that the large companies would come after you while you were developing and implementing your idea?

It took three days from the opening of TPB until the first legal threat came, so yeah kind of. :)

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Being right.

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Given what happened with Acta, SOPA, PIPA and all of that I think we have a good chance to stop the scary future. But we need to fight it. I think we're in the start of something, and we need to raise our voices!

Now that TPB is essentially a magnet index what separates it from other sites of its kind?

I would say it's the people on the site. The moderators, the users, all making it a great place. TPB is the community, without it, it's useless..

How many TBs of files have you approximately downloaded from TPB?

Why only GB? Let's talk PB.

you mention wanting tpb gone so a new one can come along. What would you like to see from a successor?

Less talk about pirates, more about ninjas!

Hi Peter!

So what's happening with your PB trial as of now? You came across very well in AFK and I hope everything works out for you.

Also, I'm very intrigued by the arguments shown in the trial. There's a clear split between you guys defending the mechanism of file sharing as a principle and the prosecution attacking the consequential ability to download copyrighted versions of things. I'm wondering what is your opinion specifically on downloading copyrighted materials like films, music etc?

Personally, I find myself completely split on the matter. On one hand, I think it's pretty shitty that people don't get the revenue from taking financial and creative risks by creating things. While on the other hand, there's so much cynical money-making crap out there that it's hard to feel loyal to the media industries. For programmes especially (photoshop, 3Dmax etc) I know that many companies turn a blind eye to students using pirated copies because it ensures that the offices will end up using those same programmes as those students become workers. I think this is an interesting undercurrent. Like Gabe Newell said (I'm paraphrasing here): the issue isn't one of theft, it's one of customer service.

I should also say that I'm a complete hypocrite in this situation, as despite thinking that people who create things should get their rewards, there's so much stuff easily available for free that I can't help but put my morals aside and enjoy the ride.

Waiting for the EU-court and european court of human rights to take the case.

On a scale of 1 to Awesome, how awesome is Markorepairs?

He's KINDA funny! So I'd say 1337.

What is your opinion on the Tor browser? Useful? Thanks Peter! Love TPB

It's great! Support Tor and the guys and team behind it as much as possible!

Peter, I never really knew that there was such a big rift within the TPB family. Especially with TiAMO and Anakata and yourself. Was this played up in the movie? When TiAMO said those things in the bar and you were either told about it or shown the footage of it to reply you looked genuinely hurt.

I was not hurt. We talk like this privately all the time. They are the most interesting things in the movie, I wanted more of that, and less of the court stuff. We still respect eachother a lot and the dynamics is kind of working!

Last year I remember reading about TPB being hosted from drones hovering out at sea at some point in the future. Is that still happening? I mean are you guys testing this out? Or was it simply an entertaining press release?

Link to article: http://thepiratebay.se/blog/210

It might already be running on that...

Hej Peter. Are you disappointed with your attorneys? The documentary made it seem like none of you were properly prepared for the trial.

Not really, i kind of liked them. My lawyer is old and respected. I changed his mind about a lof of these things. For me it was kind of a gamble. He was also one of the top politicians in the swedish christian democrats, not exactly who I would vote for. I wanted to influence him to change their views on this. (They're part of the government). It's like trolling in a good way.

Thanks for making the most viewed Bambuser broadcast of all time!

Thanks for doing an important service. You know I love you.

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It's insane. But he might actually get better from it, his health was not the best.

Any new projects you are working on?

Yes, lots! You'll see.

How did you come up with the idea for TPB? I mean I don't think anyone can imagine the world without it now, and I'm young enough where I've always had it around. But did you just decide to go for it one day, and did you ever expect to become as big as it is?

Noone excepted it to be as big as it became. Then it would have had a better name! It kind of just grew, and grew, and still keeps growing. It's like perpetual computer viagra.

Happiest moment of your life so far?

When my brother got his daughter. Sorry for the cheesy answer!

So.... what's Gottfrid's sex life like?

Contrary to popular belief, the TPB trio doesn't sleep with EACHOTHER.

With the Six Strikes plan soon to be implemented by providers across the US, what ways are there to bypass or protest this action, aside from dropping your Internet plan?

Tell your ISP that you will leave them. If you can't leave them, build a new ISP. In the meanwhile, use VPN's, Tor and help the projects that seem to do good for helping the community!

Kim Dotcom implied in interviews, that the U.S. is an outdated business model and acts so aggressively because secretly it sees itself and it's industry in existential danger. Your thoughts on this?

They're kind of two-fold. The US has all of it's power because they pollinated the whole world with hollywood propaganda. They need the movies to be spread to keep people interested in the US. At the same time, they don't want to look weak or run over. That's why they hate us all.

What have you downloaded lately ?

TPB AFK and finnish movies.

What kind of drugs was Gotte doing?

Are you a leftist?

I know that someone once paid him with weird drugs. He's experimenting. Yes, I'm very leftist.

Where do you guys stand now?

EDIT 1: Been reading all of your responses so far, so you answered pretty much! :-)

Hey Gent. :) We stand tall!

What was your favorite response to a company who had ordered you to take down their content?

EDIT: Oh my god, the co-founder of Pirate Bay actually responded to me!! I'm gonna tell all my friends about this! Thanks for being awesome you guys!

The legal threat from Linotype was the funniest. They sent a list of list of fonts they wanted taken down from TPB. The reply has a new font (from the list) for each word in the letter.

I saw the movie yesterday and I wanted to know, is Gottfrid really a junkie?

He has had issues with drugs, yes.

What if some government is able to put so much pressure on the peering TPB is using that they raid the data center again or just cut the power?

GLHF. :)

Big fan, thanks for doing this AMA Two Questions: Is there anything people in the U.S. can do to help? Writing a representative? Would joining a growing pirate party group be beneficial?

I think just asking is good. We shouldn't all just go to the pirate parties - go to the normal parties as well and tell them to change their views to fit the real world. We kind of need to lobby, not just protest.

Just saw the TPB AFK documentary earlier today, and it was very interesting. I would've liked to see more about TPB though, and less about the trials. Thanks for doing what you do for the internets. Is it correct that you will be the only one to accept the prison time? How in the world are you going to be able to pay that ridiculous sum of money that the judge fined you to?

Have no money, wouldn't pay if I had it.

Thanks for making TPB!

Used the site for years, and didn't really have any special questions.

My only question is what the original group in the starting was doing just before making TPB? Having a coffee? sitting around jerking it? :D

THANKS AGAIN from Canada!

The AMA for Piratbyrån - who founded TPB - is on reddit just after mine!

How was Cambodia? Do you recommend it? Is there any hope for the free internet? EDIT: also anything super weird / interesting you remember about this whole journey that wasn't in the movie that you'd like to share?

Ask Gottfrid. he's the one living there.

Well done for sticking around instead of fucking off like the other two guys did.

They didn't really fuck off though. Gottfrid is in prison, Fredrik is dealing with raising kids. They're great people, in their own ways :)

Do you view your greatest gift to mankind the downfall of the music industry?

Hey, the music industry is doing great - and they should. The record industry is going away, thank god. But I think my greatest gift hasn't been given away yet. I hope so at least. :)

Let's say that in the future the world governments crack down on internet freedom, and force users to be completely known and transparent in anything they say or download on the web. (Government logins, excessive bandwidth monitoring.) Is there anything that can be done to circumvent the worst internet surveillance possibilities?

Build another network, dump the old crap. Epic win!

Are you paranoid about people coming to bust your door open?

Nah. I'm more paranoid to have a door to open myself.

Do you regret everything that happened? If you were to send yourself a letter in the past, would you warn yourself not to create TPB?

PS: Thank you very much for doing this.

I would have sent a letter telling myself the winning numbers for a lottery ticket...