Henrik Pontén runs the movie studio cartel's Swedish anti-p2p organization Svenska Antipiratbyrån.

Dean Garfield is the Hollywood-owned MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) director of legal affairs.

The MPAA's latest triumph was to con Swedish police units into raiding Bahnhof, an important Swedish ISP.

Below, from the recently hacked Svenska Antipiratbyrån web site, is a warm congratulatory email from Dean to Pontén:

From: Garfield, Dean
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 12:02 PM
To: Ponten, Henrik
Cc: Tilbury, Chad
Subject: FW: EREC-05-007: Sweden: Authorities seize major pirate servers at Stockholm ISP

Henrik, this is truly phenomenal. We are all very proud of you. I am sure you are a bit unpopular with the pirate community in Sweden right now. Great work.

Also in the loop was MPAA mouthpiece John Malcolm.

Two suspects suspended
The major movie studios, record labels and software manufacturers can apparently do whatever the hell they want and get away with it.

Their pseudo-cop alphabet organizations such as the MPAA, BPI, RIAA, CRIA, IFPI, BSA, ARIA, etc, etc, routinely use tax-payer funded national and local police forces around the world to further their owners’ purely commercial interests to bring the Net under their exclusive and total control.

And no one, least of all the governments concerned which sometimes actually brag about the involvement, seems to think there’s anything in the least strange about this.

“We spoke with Jon Karlung the CEO of Bahnhof Internet, the ISP raided by the Swedish police yesterday,” says the p2p weblog, going on:.

“He said that the raid came as a surprise as, apparently, some employees were maintaining the servers. Still there’s no proof yet but to be on the safe side the company has suspended the 2 suspect staffers while the police investigation continues. ‘I feel very sorry for this and in the end it might turn out that they are completely innocent. We do not have any material to respond to yet from the police’, Jon said.

“ ‘I have very strong principal feelings about the witch hunt now going on”, Jon continues while trying to be careful on what to say as some of his employees are under suspicion.

” ‘I cannot argue in a more principal way about it. I can just say that this - no matter what happens - innocent or non innocent comes as a complete blow to us as one of Sweden oldest and independent ISP’s. It feels like they have gone after us since we are not a big telco - and we are independent. Maybe we are a more easy target.

“But since we at this stage can not be completely sure of our own employees I have to be very strict and formal. We take the situation very serious.”

Name the traitor
Did a Bahnhof employee rat the company out?

Sweden's Arga Unga Hackare (Angry Young Hackers) certainly believe that’s the case. So they hacked the country’s Antipiracy Agency servers in a bid to name the traitor, says a Pirate Bay press release. It's in Swedish, but Zeropaid has a translation here.

In the meanwhile, thanks to Arga Unga Hackare, the Svenska Antipiratbyrån (antipiracy bureau) web site is online for all to see. We've also posted a permanent copy here (for historical purposes, of course : ) and here are two more English-language missives.

From: peter@anti-piracy.se
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 9:29
To: Tilbury, Chad; Seymour, Dan; Winter, Craig
Subject: Swedish pirates busted!

Hi guys!

After 2 years of infiltrations our work finally paid of today with a successful raid on Sweden's oldest and largest ISP named Bahnhof. Bahnhof has been a source for top level piracy for several years and hosting some of the biggest and fastest servers in Europe.

And:

From: Mac Greevy, Dara
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 10:08 AM
To: Sunderland, Jane
Cc: Malcolm, John; Garfield, Dean; Tilbury, Chad

Subject: RE: EREC-05-007: Sweden: Authorities seize major pirate servers at Stockholm ISP

Dear Jane

"The Swede" was central to this operation. He even shared coffee at one stage with the operators of the servers at the ISP's premises (ironically located in the same building as the Swedish program)!

And no doubt MPAA boss Dan 'I don't know how funny I am. I think I'm funny' Glickman, who prides himself on his sense of humour, was in on the fun.

'It’s really hard to kill someone with a carrot'
The undated clips below are from Defamer.

"The MPAA, the rabid lobbyists who ensure that Shall We Dance? can never be viewed without proper respect to copyrights, are finally ready to start suing broadband-enabled movie pirates back into the days of the Commodore 64. New MPAA Head Pirate Hunter in Charge Dan Glickman will announce the opening volley of lawsuits later today. Quick, everyone uninstall BitTorrent and throw your computers into the nearest body of water to avoid their wrath! At least Glickman seems to be paying lip-service to a somewhat less bloodthirsty approach than his predecessor, Jack Valenti.

"Glickman said 'a holistic approach' was needed to combat piracy, including educational efforts, criminal prosecution and lawsuits against infringers. 'You need the stick and you need the carrot both,' he said. 'You can’t just have one without the other.'

"Glickman took a reflective pause before explaining, 'See, the way it works is we dangle the carrot, then when a file-sharer reaches for the it, we wiggle the stick so they know what we’re packing, We ask them, *Are you sure you want to do that? Didn’t you see the stick?* And if they insist on going for the carrot, we beat them to death with the stick, you know, just until we can see a little brain through the skull. That’s why you need the stick and the carrot both. It’s really hard to kill someone with a carrot'.”

(Thanks Lars and thanks terrabyte)

Jon Newton