Monday, April 27, 2009

Pirate Bay's co-founder in Cambodia?

A talented photographer tumnei (which means "having spare time" in Khmer) left a message on my post on Pirate Bay to tell me Britain's channel 4 news reported that one of Pirate Bay's four founders is in Cambodia.

That co-founder is Gottfrid Svartholm aka Anakata and the news was probably based on this torrentfreak.com interview with Peter Sunde, another co-founder.:

TF: We’ve heard rumors that Anakata traveled to Cambodia after the trial. Is he meeting King Kong there or is there another explanation?

Peter: I’m not sure if he’s in Cambodia - he travels a bit for a customer that he’s working with. But, I think he’s in Asia at least. And yeah, he’s probably drinking cider with King Kong one of these days.
Who is this client "King Kong" and where is he? Certainly not in the "jungles of Cambodia"! (People are often surprised when I tell them Cambodia is technologically quite sophisticated -- we have our own satellite dish for broadband internet, for instance, an option not available in Singapore).

Far from the jungles, I bet it is someone in the capital city, Phnom Penh. Is he Khmer or a foreigner and what does he want Anakata to do for him (I bet it's a him, too!). If anyone knows, please tell me! I am so curious...!

Anyway, here is the quote by the defense attorney, but no doubt he was being facetious

Day 3: The day began with the presenting of the amended charges. The prosecution then explained their damages claim. They reasoned that every download was a lost sale, and that’s where some of the charges come from. However, in the case where material was made available before official release, or in cases where there was no official release, they charged up to 10x as much. The defense argued that The Pirate Bay only offers a service, and some users use the service to break copyright. However, it’s perfectly legal (as per specific European Union law) to still provide that service. Per Samuelsson, one of the defense attorneys, spoke at length that the IFPI should be trying to find the users that made the copyright material available – users with such names as King Kong. He suggested searching the jungle of Cambodia for such a user.
From technews.iit.edu, the student paper of Illinois Institute of Technology, since 1897.

1 comment:

Diana Saw said...

Thanks Emilio. Like your blog too...i tried to post a comment. hope it worked! diana

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