''TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard'' is a 2013 Swedish

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

directed and produced by Simon Klose. It focuses on the lives of the three founders of

The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...

– Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm – and the Pirate Bay trial. Filming began sometime in 2008, and concluded on 28 February 2012.

Production

The film's website was launched on 28 August 2010, along with a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign to raise

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

25,000 to hire an editor after the Court of Appeal

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. The campaign was fully funded within three days and raised $51,424 in total. In February 2011, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee () granted the project an additional 200,000 SEK (≈$30,000).

Release

The full film was released under the

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

br>BY-NC-ND
license onto The Pirate Bay,

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, and other

BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...

sites. Additionally, a four-minute shorter version with certain copyright restricted content removed was released at the same time under the Creative Common
BY-NC-SA
license to allow remixing. TPB AFK premiered at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival on 8 February 2013 – opening the festival's 'Panorama Dokumente' section – coinciding with its free online release on YouTube and The Pirate Bay. On 19 February 2013, the film was broadcast on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

in the UK as part of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's ''Storyville'' documentary series.

Reception

Peter Sunde, one of the subjects of the documentary, wrote that he has "mixed feelings about the movie and the release of it". Whilst he likes the technical side of the documentary, he has issues with some scenes and general attitude of the documentary; this includes too much focus put on the trial, too dark depiction of it, and portraying himself beyond self-recognition. Despite having such different views on the subject, he regards the director as a friend.

Censorship by Hollywood

In May 2013, Hollywood studios – such as Viacom,

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. **Paramount Picture ...

, Fox and Lionsgate – started to censor

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

links pointing to the documentary, an action criticized by Simon Klose. In June, after the initial controversy,

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

and Lionsgate sent additional bogus DMCA takedown notices to Google requesting the removal of links related to TPB AFK. In response, Simon Klose contacted Chilling Effects, who recommended that he file a DMCA counter-notice once he had found out whether Google had taken down the links or not. Two months later, the censored links were reinstated only after public complaints made by Klose.

References

External links

Main sites

''TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard''
on

* * * – as part of BBC's ''Storyville'' TV documentary strand

Documentary online