sweden

Even though North Korea is known to have extremely limited Internet service, the Web-based bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced today that it relocated to this closed-off and highly censored country.

"The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets," The Pirate Bay wrote in a blog post. "Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of … Read more

The names Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Fredrik Neij might not mean much to the average person, but in the annals of Internet history, they will always be known as the co-founders of The Pirate Bay -- one of the most popular file-sharing hubs of all time.

Now you can view an 82-minute documentary titled "TPB AFK" (The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard), a film that chronicles the people behind the Pirate Bay attempting -- and failing -- to navigate past Swedish authorities who accused them of numerous copyright infringement charges.

The movie, released under a Creative Commons license and directed by Simon Klose, officially debuted for free today online and at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. Here's the official synopsis from the "TPB AFK" Web site:… Read more

In a stunning repudiation of a United Nations summit, an alliance of Western democracies including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada today rejected a proposed treaty over concerns it hands repressive governments too much authority over the Internet.

"This conference was never meant to focus on Internet issues," said ambassador Terry Kramer, head of the U.S. delegation to the Dubai summit. "The Internet has given the world unimaginable economic and social benefit during these past 24 years -- all without U.N. regulation."

Delegates from the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, the Philippines, … Read more

A United Nations summit suddenly ran aground today after China, Algeria, and Iran objected to a U.S.-backed proposal that would include a mention of "human rights obligations" in a proposed telecommunications treaty.

Algeria's delegate warned at the U.N. summit in Dubai that there were many other nations -- calling them "silent member states" -- that also opposed the human rights language and forced a temporary adjournment of the proceedings.

China criticized the human rights language as well, saying "we also have a very serious question about the necessity of the existence … Read more

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is being released from solitary confinement and moved to a different prison in Sweden to finish his sentence tied to his role in illegal file-sharing.

According to torrent site TorrentFreak, Warg is due in May to finish a sentence for his role in running The Pirate Bay, a resource for finding torrent files that can be used to download both legal and illegal content.

His detainment in solitary confinement apparently wasn't tied to the Pirate Bay case specifically. When he was deported from Cambodia to Sweden this summer, Warg was accused of hacking … Read more

This secret is out. Sometimes, girls like to play with He-Man action figures and boys like to nurture dolls. A Swedish toy catalog is getting a lot of attention for swapping out traditional gender roles by depicting a boy playing with a dollhouse and a girl blasting an imaginary foe with a Nerf gun.

Top Toy created the holiday catalog for toy chains BR and Toys"R"Us. The catalog was released in both Denmark and Sweden, but the Swedish version features some Photoshopped changes. Perhaps most notably, a boy wielding a toy gun in the Danish catalog was replaced by a girl, while a boy appears on another page playing with a very pink dollhouse.… Read more

In theory, snowboarding in the dark sounds like a fool's activity, but Swedish energy-drink company Burn makes the idea cool in a wild video called "Black Snow."

In the short vid, we observe seasoned European snowboarders Stale Sandbech, Ulrik Badertscher, and Gigi Ruf riding a futuristic artificial-snow course filled with LED-infused rails and obstacles set against a pitch-black night. Before the action kicks off, a voice channels Jeff Bridges' Kevin Flynn character in "Tron" and emits a solemn sentence: "When you find your passion, it will light up the darkness ahead." That's followed by a healthy dose of futuristic techno music. … Read more

Swedish police arrested Gottfried Svartholm Warg today as soon as he stepped off the plane from Cambodia.

Warg, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, one of the best known file-sharing services on the Web, is accused of hacking into the servers of a company that supplies IT services for some of Sweden's tax services and making off with records belonging to thousands of people, according to Swedish news publication Aftonbladet.

Up until late last week, it was believed that Warg had been detained by police in Cambodia because of his conviction in Sweden on copyright charges. In … Read more

The circumstances surrounding the arrest of Pirate Bay cofounder Gottfried Svartholm Warg become more mysterious each day.

The latest report from Swedish publication DN.se, is that Warg's arrest in Cambodia nearly two weeks ago had nothing to do with his conviction on copyright violations but is linked to an alleged hacking of Logica, a Swedish company that provides IT services to that country's tax offices.

News that Warg was arrested didn't come as much of a surprise. Warg appeared to flee Sweden shortly after he and three other Pirate Bay founders were sentenced to a year … Read more