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Essential reading for anyone curious about Carl Lundström's life outside of bankrolling The Pirate Bay: https://www.theregister.com/2012/09/21/pirate_bay_fasci

Essential reading for anyone curious about Carl Lundström's life outside of bankrolling The Pirate Bay: https://www.theregister.com/2012/09/21/pirate_bay_fascist_bankrupt https://www.theregister.com/2012/09/21/pirate_bay_fascist_ba... https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi https://www.theregister.com/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi > Lundström was linked to a gang of skinheads that attacked Latin American tourists in Stockholm in the mid-1980s. Over the years, Lundström has switched his support from Keep Sweden Swedish to the far-right headbangers party New Democracy - but was thrown out for being too right wing. He's currently bankrolling 100 candidates for the Swedish equivalent of the BNP.

rtkwe 2y ago
Glad he accidentally did at least one half-decent thing with his money once. Wonder what his reason was for it, it's not a stance I'd expect from someone with his political leanings.
- dagw 2y ago
  Wonder what his reason was for it Initially almost certainly money. He had a history of being an entrepreneur and investor involved in all kinds of random businesses. Back when he first got involved with TPB, what they were doing (just hosting torrent links) wasn't technically illegal in Sweden, and he probably figured that getting shares in what had potential to become a massive web site in return for offering free hosting at the ISP he ran was a really good deal. Of course his official story was that he wasn't really involved, he mostly just let one of his employees host this side project for free on a server at the ISP he ran. And once his politics became known, the official line from the other TPB founders was that he had never had anything to do with TPB, he just happened to own the ISP where they happened to be hosting. There is also a story that his company had been heavily fined by the BSA over some software licensing and that he was pissed off at them and saw this as a way of getting revenge.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Haha so this one good thing was maybe by accident or spite, that jives.
bjoli 2y ago
BSS ("keep Sweden Swedish") were Nazis. I am old enough to remember them heiling in the streets (real proper heiling, not the kind you accidentally do at a presidential inauguration. Twice). He never really managed to distance himself from that. Not that he seemed to try. Outside of financing thepiratebay ge spent most of his life hiding assets from being taxed. And he also lobbied an anti-tax organisation for an even-lower-tax policy. The only good thing about the whole pirate bay court saga was that he lost a lot of money he would have otherwise used to push his far right-agenda.
- chimeracoder 2y ago
  > He never really managed to distance himself from that. Not that he seemed to try. Is there any reason to believe he even wanted to distance himself from it? He ran for office just a few years ago on essentially the same platform.

rtkwe 2y ago

Glad he accidentally did at least one half-decent thing with his money once. Wonder what his reason was for it, it's not a stance I'd expect from someone with his political leanings.

dagw 2y ago
Wonder what his reason was for it Initially almost certainly money. He had a history of being an entrepreneur and investor involved in all kinds of random businesses. Back when he first got involved with TPB, what they were doing (just hosting torrent links) wasn't technically illegal in Sweden, and he probably figured that getting shares in what had potential to become a massive web site in return for offering free hosting at the ISP he ran was a really good deal. Of course his official story was that he wasn't really involved, he mostly just let one of his employees host this side project for free on a server at the ISP he ran. And once his politics became known, the official line from the other TPB founders was that he had never had anything to do with TPB, he just happened to own the ISP where they happened to be hosting. There is also a story that his company had been heavily fined by the BSA over some software licensing and that he was pissed off at them and saw this as a way of getting revenge.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Haha so this one good thing was maybe by accident or spite, that jives.

bjoli 2y ago

BSS ("keep Sweden Swedish") were Nazis. I am old enough to remember them heiling in the streets (real proper heiling, not the kind you accidentally do at a presidential inauguration. Twice). He never really managed to distance himself from that. Not that he seemed to try. Outside of financing thepiratebay ge spent most of his life hiding assets from being taxed. And he also lobbied an anti-tax organisation for an even-lower-tax policy. The only good thing about the whole pirate bay court saga was that he lost a lot of money he would have otherwise used to push his far right-agenda.

chimeracoder 2y ago
> He never really managed to distance himself from that. Not that he seemed to try. Is there any reason to believe he even wanted to distance himself from it? He ran for office just a few years ago on essentially the same platform.