Peter Sunde

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Peter Sunde

Born Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi
(1978-09-13) 13 September 1978
Uddevalla, Sweden
Other names brokep
Known for Co-founder of The Pirate Bay
Founder of Flattr
Co-founder of Kvittar
Co-founder of IPREDator

Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (alias brokep, born 13 September 1978 Uddevalla, Sweden) is a computer expert with Norwegian and Finnish roots.[1][2] He is best known for being a co-founder and ex-spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent search engine.[3]

Personal life

Before the founding of the Pirate Bay Sunde worked for a large German medical company. In 2003 he became a member of Sweden's Piratbyrån (The Pirate Bureau) and a few months later Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm started The Pirate Bay with Sunde as the spokesperson.[4] He remained The Pirate Bay's spokesperson until late 2009 (three years after the ownership of the site transferred to Reservella). In August 2011 Sunde and, fellow Pirate Bay co-founder, Fredrik Neij launched file-sharing site BayFiles, that aims to "legally" share.[5] Sunde speaks Swedish, Norwegian, English, Finnish and German.

Peter Sunde will run for European Parliament in 2014 election with Pirate Party of Finland.[6]

The Pirate Bay Trial

On 31 January 2008, The Pirate Bay operators – Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström (CEO of The Pirate Bay's former ISP) – were charged with "assisting [others in] copyright infringement".[7] The trial began on 16 February 2009. On 17 April 2009, Sunde and his co-defendants were found to be guilty of "assisting in making copyright content available" in the Stockholm district court (tingsrätt). Each defendant was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay damages of 30 million SEK (approximately €2,740,900 or US$3,620,000), to be apportioned between the four defendants.[8] After the verdict a press conference was held where Sunde held up a handwritten IOU statement claiming that is all the damages he will pay, adding "Even if I had any money I would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the ashes. They could have the job of picking them up. That's how much I hate the media industry."[9]

The defendants' lawyers appealed to the Svea Court of Appeal together with a request for a retrial in the district court because of the recent suspicion of bias on the part of judge Tomas Norström.[10] On appeal, the jail sentences were reduced, but the damages increased. The supreme court of Sweden subsequently refused to hear any further appeal.

Segments of an interview with Sunde talking about copyright, the Internet, and culture are featured in the 2007 documentary Steal This Film and 2013 documentary TPB AFK.

Flattr

Main article: Flattr

Flattr is a micropayments system started by Sunde and Linus Olsson, which enables viewers of websites to make small donations to the developer by clicking a "Flattr this" button. At the time of the projects's announcement in February 2010, Sunde explained that "the money you pay each month will be spread evenly among the buttons you click in a month. We want to encourage people to share money as well as content."[11] Flattr itself takes a 10 percent administration fee.[11]

After Wikileaks's initial publication of the U.S. Diplomatic Cables, companies like Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Moneybookers blocked donations and money transfers to the site. Flattr, however, continued allowing donations to Wikileaks. Sunde commented "We [Flattr] think their work is exactly what is needed and if we can help just a little bit, we will."[12]

Hemlis

On 10 July 2013, Peter Sunde, together with Leif Högberg and Linus Olsson presented Hemlis, a free and private messaging platform. The application will provide end-to-end encryption which enables private messaging where only the people chatting can read the messages, meaning that Hemlis maintainers or any government agencies cannot spy on the users. The name "Hemlis" is slang for the Swedish word "hemlighet" ("secret").[13]

References

  1. ↑ Kuprijanko, Alexander (2009-02-07). "Jag känner inte att jag gör något fel". Sydsvenskan (in Swedish). 
  2. ↑ Waters, Darren (16 April 2009). "Countdown to Pirate Bay verdict". BBC. Retrieved 20 April 2009. 
  3. ↑ Thorkildsen, Joakim (2008-01-31). "Norske Peter tiltalt i The Pirate Bay-saken". Dagbladet (in Norwegian). Retrieved 2008-06-29. 
  4. ↑ "Pirate Bay’s Founding Group ‘Piratbyrån’ Disbands". TorrentFreak. 2010-06-23. Retrieved 2012-02-03. 
  5. ↑ "Pirate Bay Founders Launch "Legal" File-Sharing Site". Tomsguide.com. 2011-08-31. Retrieved 2012-02-03. 
  6. ↑ Pirate Bay Co-Founder to Run For European Parliament, TorrentFreak
  7. ↑ "Pirate Bay Future Uncertain After Operators Busted"
  8. ↑ "The Pirate Bay Trial: Official Verdict - Guilty"
  9. ↑ Kiss, Jemima (17 April 2009). "Pirate Bay defendant: we can't and won't pay". The Guardian (London). 
  10. ↑ "Pirate Bay lawyer calls for retrial". The Local. 2009-04-23. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Pirate boss to make the web pay". BBC News. 12 February 2010. Retrieved 22 May 2010. 
  12. ↑ August 23, 2010 (2010-08-23). "Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi : Kevin Trudeau Show". Ktradionetwork.com. Retrieved 2012-02-03. 
  13. ↑ Pirate Bay Founder to Launch NSA-proof Messenger App

External links

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