Carl Lundstrom, the inheritor to a Swedish crisp bread fortune who financed the Pirate Bay, a infamous file-sharing service that was standard within the mid-2000s, was killed on Monday in a small airplane crash in Slovenia, in line with Various for Sweden, the far-right celebration that he supported.
Mr. Lundstrom, 64, was the pilot and sole occupant of the airplane, a Mooney M20, which had taken off from Zagreb, the Croatian capital, and was en path to Zurich, the celebration stated in a statement.
Air site visitors controllers reported that they’d misplaced contact with the airplane within the mountainous Velika Planina space of northern Slovenia, according to the Slovenian police.
Extraordinarily unhealthy climate made it unattainable for rescuers to make use of helicopters, forcing them to take a gondola after which hike on foot to achieve the distant crash web site, the police stated. They found items of the airplane lodged in a wood hut, which was virtually reduce in half, the police stated.
A physique was later discovered amid the rubble, stated the police, who added that the reason for the crash had not been decided.
Mr. Lundstrom was a grandson of the founding father of the Swedish crisp bread model Wasabröd, and an inheritor to the corporate fortune, in line with Swedish media reviews.
He was a financier of the Pirate Bay, which was based in Sweden in 2003 and have become one of many largest so-called Bit Torrent trackers, which permit customers to obtain giant digital recordsdata by enlisting the assistance of different computer systems.
The Pirate Bay, which supplied hyperlinks to 1000’s of songs, motion pictures and video video games, was as soon as estimated to have greater than 20 million customers.
Trade teams just like the Movement Image Affiliation accused the positioning of constructing a mockery of copyright legal guidelines, and Swedish prosecutors took motion.
In 2008, they charged Mr. Lundstrom and the positioning’s three founders with having facilitated copyright infringement by serving to customers obtain music, motion pictures and different copyrighted materials.
The Pirate Bay trial unfolded amid a carnival-like environment in Stockholm, with bands enjoying outdoors the courtroom and bloggers documenting each step of the proceedings.
Mr. Lundstrom and his co-defendants, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, maintained that they weren’t violating copyright regulation as a result of they didn’t really host any of the copyrighted materials on their very own servers.
Through the trial, a prosecutor tried to tie Mr. Lundstrom to the Pirate Bay as a “co-owner,” however he testified that he had solely offered internet hosting and web providers to the positioning’s operators, Wired journal reported in 2009.
Mr. Lundstrom acknowledged giving the Pirate Bay’s operators ethical assist and sympathy, Wired reported, however stated he had not change into their enterprise accomplice, discovering the prospect legally dangerous.
A Swedish courtroom convicted Mr. Lundstrom and his co-defendants in 2009 and sentenced them every to a 12 months in jail.
They have been additionally ordered to pay 30 million kronor, or about $3.6 million on the time, in damages to main leisure corporations, together with Warner Brothers, Sony Music Leisure, EMI and Columbia Photos.
An appeals courtroom later upheld the convictions of Mr. Lundstrom, Mr. Neij and Mr. Sunde, however lowered their sentences to between 4 and 10 months and raised the quantity they needed to pay in damages to 46 million kronor, or about $6.5 million on the time.
Mr. Warg didn’t take part within the enchantment, citing an sickness.
The decision was a serious victory for the leisure business in its marketing campaign to curb on-line piracy on websites like Napster, which grew to become massively standard within the late Nineties and early 2000s.
“We aren’t triumphant,” John Kennedy, the chief govt of the Worldwide Federation of the Phonographic Trade, stated after Mr. Lundstrom and his co-defendants have been convicted. “However we’re happy that the courtroom has clearly stated that what they have been doing was improper.”
Along with his function within the Pirate Bay, Mr. Lundstrom was a longtime supporter of right-wing causes in Sweden. He helped again a motion in opposition to permitting refugees to settle in Sjöbo, a city on the southern tip of Sweden, within the late Eighties, Various for Sweden stated in its assertion.
When Various for Sweden, an anti-immigrant celebration, was shaped in 2018, Mr. Lundstrom grew to become concerned as a district supervisor after which as an unsuccessful candidate for workplace, the celebration stated.
It known as him “a legend and veteran of Swedish nationalism.”
However Mr. Lundstrom was higher identified for his function within the Pirate Bay, stated Mikael Sundstrom, a senior lecturer within the Division of Political Science at Lund College in Sweden.
“Lundstrom’s overt political life was spent in far-right circles, however with restricted influence,” he stated in an e-mail.
