“Piratbyrån” (The Bureau for Piracy) might internationally be best known for starting up The Pirate Bay, which is now the world's largest bittorrent tracker and the subject of a controversial court case. (“The Pirate Bay” has long since been an independent entity, even if collaborating closely with “Piratbyrån”).
While to some extent powered by the brute force of (“The Pirate Bay”, “Piratbyrån” has established itself as a blend of theorists, artists, consultants, activists and pranksters, not only influencing Swedish opinions, decision-makers and initiatives but also more and more participating in formulating European discourses on topics that not only include file-sharing alone but the larger impact of digital information abundance on the creation of cultural meaning, cultural production and economics and urban life.
One basic assumption of “Piratbyrån's” works is that copying is a fact. The files have already been downloaded and uploaded. We live in an age of cultural abundance, of anything which can be digitalized, which makes it an urgent and exciting task to explore the heterogenous possibilities of creating meaning and economies by connecting this digital abundance to what is not really abundant, like time and space. Thus, one objective is really about re-exploring the notion of performative value, as an alternative to the “creative industries” ideology which tends to reduce culture just to “content”.
At the same time, “Piratbyrån” is ceaselessy scrutinizing the role of copyright enforcement today, developing critiques of how it evolves into new mechanisms for control of the very infrastructure of the internet, and how it tends to move from the level of actual copyrighted data towards the level of metadata, tools and protocols. An area of special interest has always been on the grey zones of copyright, as it is today very clear that copyright in the digital realm operates more by inserting uncertainty and fear than by imposing a blackand- white scheme of legal and illegal. “Piratbyrån” is not focused on reforming (or abolishing) copyright law, even if we are frequently collaborating with people working in that direction, including Swedish mainstream politicians from a number of parties.

Links: http://www.piratbyran.org http://thepiratebay.org

Piratbyran (SE). The most active members are a motley crew consisting of up to a dozen people with very different backgrounds (hacking, horses, music, philosophy, art, etc.), the majority having been in the project since the beginning. Depending on different projects, an outer circle of supporting personnel are involved. But Piratbyrän shoudn’t be viewed as an organization fueling its own process. Rather Piratbyrän mostly operates via interventions, collaborations and inspirations.