Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm is not sitting around doing nothing following his hacking conviction. Speaking with TorrentFreak the Swede confirms that an appeal is underway and in the meantime he's taken to the study of neurobiology. Oh, and two other people the press believe are Pirate Bay founders? They're not, he insists.

After being arrested in Cambodia during September 2012 it soon became clear that two Scandinavian countries wanted to get their hands on Gottfrid Svartholm.

Sweden had a long-standing interest in their countryman for his infamous work on The Pirate Bay, but once that was out-of-the-way a pair of hacking cases had to be dealt with.

The first, in Sweden, resulted in partial successes for both sides. While Gottfrid was found guilty of hacking into IT company Logica, following testimony from Jacob Appelbaum he was later cleared by the Appeal Court (Svea Hovrätt) of hacking into Nordea Bank.

But despite this significant result and a repeat appearance from Appelbaum, the trial that concluded in Denmark last month went all one way, with Gottfrid picking up a three-and-a-half year sentence.

With his mother Kristina acting as go-between, TorrentFreak recently fired off some questions to Gottfrid to find out how he’s been bearing up following October’s verdict and to discover his plans for the future.

Firstly, TF asked about his opinion on the decision. Gottfrid declined to answer directly but indicated we should look to the fact that he has already filed an appeal against the verdict. That should be enough of an answer, he said.

As it stands and considering time served, Gottfrid could be released as early as August 2015, but that clearly isn’t deterring him from the possibility of leaving sooner. Gottfrid has always shown that he’s both stubborn and a fighter, so sitting out his sentence in silence was probably never an option.

Moving on, TF pressed Gottfrid on what he feels were the points of failure during the court process and how these will play out alongside his appeal.

“Can’t discuss defense strategy at this point,” he responded. Fair enough.

Even considering the preparations for an appeal, there are a lot of hours in the coming months that will prove hard to fill. However, Gottfrid’s comments suggest that his access to books has improved since his days in solitary confinement and he’s putting that to use.

“I study neurobiology and related subjects to pass the time,” he says, with mother Kristina noting that this education is self-motivated.

“The ‘arrest house’ can of course not provide him with opportunities for higher studies,” she says.

Although he’s been thrust into the public eye on many occasions, Gottfrid’s appearances at court in Sweden (documented in TPB AFK) and later in his Danish trial reveal a man with an eye for detail and accuracy. It perhaps comes as little surprise then that he also took the opportunity to put the record straight on something he knows a lot about – the history of The Pirate Bay.

If one searches for “founders of The Pirate Bay” using Google, it’s very clear from many thousands of reports that they are Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde. According to Gottfrid, however, that simply isn’t true.

“TPB was founded by me and two people who haven’t been involved since 2004,” Gottfrid says. “Fredrik came into the picture when the site moved from Mexico to Sweden, probably early 2004.”

While acknowledging Fredrik’s work as important for the growth of the site, Gottfrid noted that Peter’s arrival came sometime later. He didn’t specify who the other two founders were but it’s likely they’re to be found among the early members of Piratbyrån as detailed here.

With Peter Sunde already released from his sentence and Fredrik Neij close to beginning his, it’s possible that the founders trio could all be free men by the end of 2015. So does Gottfrid have anything exciting up his sleeve for then?

“Yes, I have plans, but I’m not sharing them,” he concludes.