Yesterday, Carl Lundström stepped into his Mooney M20 propeller-driven plane, heading from Zagreb to Zurich in a solo flight. Not long after takeoff, the plane reportedly crashed into a mountain cabin located in the Slovenian Big Pasture Plateau.
Lundström, who was 64 years old, did not survive.
The crash of Lundström’s plane was picked up by both Slovenian and Swedish media. A body reportedly found at the crash site is yet to be officially identified.
Carl Lundström (1960 -2025)
Born in 1960 as one of the heirs to the Wasabröd empire, Lundström was financially independent at an early age. In addition to an interest in politics, including his involvement in various far-right political organizations, he also developed his business skills, with a particular interest in technology.
Lundström owned the Internet providers Rix Telecom AB and Rix Port 80, which helped many businesses venture online in the early 2000s. These companies also partnered with smaller players such as PRQ, owned by Pirate Bay founders Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm.
In 2004, Lundström met Neij at an exhibition and invited him to work for Rix Telecom. Later that year, Neij informed Lundström about one of the new projects he was involved in; a torrent site called The Pirate Bay. The site, which was Swedish-only at the time, was growing fast and needed more server power and a good Internet connection.
Pirate Bay Backer
Lundström was interested in the project and offered to help out, initially providing two servers. This was just the start, however, as plans to transform The Pirate Bay into an international file-sharing site would soon require much more computing power.
According to a detailed description, shared during the Pirate Bay trial, Lundström later proposed a formal partnership where he would provide hardware and connectivity, in exchange for a significant stake in the business.
This formal involvement with The Pirate Bay didn’t come to fruition. When changes to Swedish copyright law were announced in 2005, Lundström started to have doubts about the project. An initial plan considered relocating the business to Argentina, where the Swedish Embassy was asked for input, but that never went through.
Rix Telecom’s owner reportedly backed out of the planned deal with PRQ/TPB in late 2005, but his company continued to offer services to the file-sharing site, at least for a while.
While Lundström had taken his hands off the Pirate Bay project, his early involvement made him one of the four defendants in the Pirate Bay trial. He was ultimately sentenced to four months in prison.
Controversy
Lundström’s association with right-wing organizations was often the center of attention, for good reasons. However, Swedish journalist and friend Christian Peterson, stresses that Lundström was much more than that.
“Although the established media likes to reduce him to a simple ‘right-wing extremist’, Lundström was far more than that. He was an entrepreneur, a creative financier and a person who dared to defy political correctness when it was not popular to do so,” Peterson wrote in an article, commemorating his friend’s passing.
The far-right political associations were quite uncomfortable for some involved with The Pirate Bay early on, especially those who leaned far to the left. Yet despite this unease, Lundström played a central part in the site’s history. Perhaps even more than that.
Without Lundström stepping up, the notorious torrent site might never have broken through to the masses.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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