TPB-AFK, the upcoming documentary about The Pirate Bay and its founders, is finally ready for a worldwide premiere. The film has been in the making for four years and aside from funds received from "the Internet" it received financial support from major broadcasters including the BBC. Director Simon Klose hopes that the film will be picked up by a film festival soon so it can be shared on the Internet, for free.

In the summer of 2003 a group of computer fanatics came up with the idea of starting a new file-sharing site using the then relatively new BitTorrent protocol.

The Pirate Bay was born, and nearly a decade and numerous court cases later it is still the most-visited torrent site of all time.

But how did Anakata, Brokep and TiAMO – three guys from Scandinavia – become Hollywood’s worst nightmare? What drove them to mock copyright holders, how did they deal with the private investigators who were watching them, and what makes The Pirate Bay so special?

These and other questions will be answered in the soon-to-be-released documentary TBP-AFK. The film shows the three founders looking back at how it all started, and also follows them during the Pirate Bay trials in Stockholm.

The film has been in the making for four years and Swedish filmmaker and producer Simon Klose has now finally announced that it’s ready to premiere. Once a film festival picks it up TBP-AFK will be made available for download on The Pirate Bay as well, and everyone will be allowed to share it.

To get funding for the film Simon Klose initially started a Kickstarter campaign during the summer of 2010, and not without success. The goal of $25,000 was met in just three days and $51,424 was raised in total during the month-long fundraiser.

However, TBP-AFK also received financial backing from several major broadcasters in Europe, including the BBC, the German ARTE, Swedish SVT, Norwegian NRK, Danish DR and the Dutch VPRO. This is quite remarkable, considering that the documentary will be shared online for free.

To keep close followers of the project happy, Klose has previously released a few short clips of the footage he shot. One clip features Pirate Bay founder Fredrik Neij (TiAMO) drinking a beer and chatting about the early days of The Pirate Bay.

TiAMO

In the clip below Gottfrid Svartholm (Anakata), who’s currently serving his sentence in a Swedish prison, discusses in court how The Pirate Bay came about.

Anakata

Klose told TorrentFreak that he hopes to release more details on the premiere during the coming weeks, as well as some other big news.

Stay tuned.