Say what you will about The Pirate Bay: if nothing else, its founders are resilient, defiant, and clever. Two out of its three co-founders have yet to be brought to justice. Since being convicted of aiding copyright infringement, none of them have paid a single cent of the multi-million dollar fine ordered by a Swedish court in 2009, and all seem quite resolute on maintaining that position. (Still, each of the three claim to no longer have any involvement in the site.)

There’s not much new information about the founders in Simon Klose’s new film TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard, which debuted Friday at the Berlinale Film Festival in the German capital and is available freely online under a Creative Commons license. The non-narrated, largely Swedish-language film profiles the three co-founders during their prosecution by the Swedish government and doesn’t address—other than through filmed court testimony—the fourth co-defendant, businessman Carl Lundström. (Lundström did serve four months in Sweden under house arrest, but he has since returned to living in Switzerland. He also declined to be profiled for the film.)

In February 2012, the Swedish Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case against the co-founders, leaving the three with few, if any, legal options left at their disposal. After being deported late last year on a Cambodian visa violation, Gottfrid “anakata” Svartholm Warg remains in Swedish custody. Meanwhile, Fredrik “tiamo” Neij is still living in Laos with his wife and son.

In the closing minutes of the film (shot in November 26, 2010, on the day the first appeals decision was to be announced), Neij looks straight in the camera while taking a leisurely family lunch aboard a boat in Laos with co-founder Peter Sunde at his side. Neij flatly says: “I can serve a prison sentence. But why do it if I don’t have to?”

Later that day, just moments after the two of them find out that they’ve lost their appeal, Neij adds: “The statute of limitations is five years. They can’t issue an international warrant of arrest. I can sit here and jerk off for five years. And I will.”

The film also reminds us that Neij is wanted by Interpol, although his name does not turn up in Interpol’s online database. Meanwhile, Sunde remains a digital nomad, traveling seemingly freely about Europe and the rest of the world. He’s even answering a Reddit AMA on Saturday.

In other words, these guys seem very comfortable with ignoring Swedish justice.

Late last year, Håkan Roswall, the chief prosecutor in the Pirate Bay trial, told Ars that he has “no doubt whatsoever that every one of those four will serve their sentence.”

Tension below the surface

TPB AFK is a good overview, but for those who have been following the twists and turns of the Pirate Bay saga over the last several years, there’s not a lot of new or surprising information here. Much of the footage is from the trial itself; the rest involves ominous scenes of Stockholm’s skyline, shots of the interior of the Pionen data center, and a surprisingly business-like scene of Neij’s wedding (with Sunde present) in Laos—where he agrees to pay a dowry of $6,000 in Thai baht in order to marry Chandaly “Lee” Souksada and further agrees to pay $12,000 if he divorces her.

Only toward the end does the film begin to touch on some of the complicated personal relationships and issues among the three co-founders. The trio themselves—how they came to know each other, how they interact with each other—are far more interesting than the legal tick-tock and courtroom testimony (although that footage does show their complete lack of respect for the entire proceeding).

After the first hour of the 80-minute film, there is a quick interview with a friend of Svartholm Warg’s, who says she has just returned from Cambodia to visit him and is concerned about his drug use. (Ars reported in late 2012, based on interviews from others who knew him in Cambodia, that he had struggled with drug use as well.)

Suddenly, the film cuts to an anti-racism rally in Stockholm and shows Sunde smiling happily along the sidelines. Then another cut to Neij sitting in Kelly’s Bar, where we hear a semi-drunken rant: “Brokep (Peter Sunde) is a fucking vegetarian leftist bitch-ass bastard,” he says in English, while speaking to an unnamed supporter or friend.

The friend replies: “But he’s got balls because he’s in the Pirate Bay? He’s giving all the interviews.”

Neij: “He’s still a bitch. He does it because of ideological pussy-inflicted instincts. He needs to look himself in the ass and take his own life in his hands.”

The film again cuts suddenly to Sunde, who seems unphased by Neij’s rants.

“If he’s had a beer or two, he becomes the most annoying person on Earth,” he says nonchalantly. “The problem is he take[s] a couple of beers at least everyday.”

Distancing themselves from Lundström

Cut back to the bar, where the friend poses another question to Neij: “Isn’t there some connection [with The Pirate Bay] to right-wing parties in Sweden?”

“Carl Lundström, one of the co-defendants, was a right-wing extremist before... He founded a lot of crap," says Neij in English. "But in the end he married a Jewish girl. He has four kids. To call him a right-wing extremist was correct 10-20 years ago. Now I wouldn’t say that.”

Then he switches back into his native Swedish: “If Carl Lundström is xenophobic then so am I. Every time I’ve been beaten or robbed, it’s been by immigrants. And I don’t mean seventh-generation Finnish immigrants. I mean these dirty fucking immigrants.”

The camera immediately returns to Sunde. “What can I say?” Sunde says flatly. “He’s stupid when it comes to things like that. He has never thought for himself. He just says what his parents say. He’s an alcoholic racist asshole. But I still love him.”

Back to Neij, in English again: “And you know what? All the e-mails in the Pirate Bay trial come from Anakata [Svartholm Warg], the security guy. Anakata the doesn’t-know-how-to-fucking-encrypt-his-computer! Even I and Peter encrypted our e-mails. But Gottfrid didn’t! Gottfrid is the stupidest person in the entire history of IT.”

He takes a swig of beer and says with sarcasm: “Yeah, the Pirate Bay is really tight!”

Pirates in exile

The last five minutes of the film show Sunde and Neij together, presumably at Neij’s home in Laos, where they seem half-reflective, half-annoyed at losing their appeal. Just after they find out the verdict, Sunde calls his mother (the second time in the film he does so), and the Internet connection suddenly goes down.

“We’re not even on BBC or CNN yet! That irritates me! Come on, goddammit!” Neij says with mock annoyance, but he then grabs a remote to check more channels. “I guess we have to live with the fact that we’re not important anymore.”

He picks up a beer and cheers Sunde, sitting across the room with his laptop on the couch: “The Bay!”

Sunde, typing away, ignores Neij, and simply asks, “When does the Internet come back?”

Neij responds, “Maybe in two hours, if we’re lucky.”

Sunde seems slightly put off and briefly raises his eyebrows in exasperation.

The final scene ends with Sunde testifying before a European Parliament committee, saying simply: “[The Pirate Bay] is ten times larger than Napster was at its peak, and it’s still growing.”

In other words, The Pirate Bay, for better or worse, has grown to become a seemingly unstoppable force. The fact that the site continues, with two out of the three remaining free, simply proves that point.