The Pirate Bay founder arrested in Cambodia

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, has been arrested in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reports.

Warg has had an international warrant out for his arrest, after being sentenced to a year in prison in Sweden for his involvement in The Pirate Bay but has so far not served his sentence.

Althought Cambodia and Sweden do not have extradition treaties with each other, Warg is expected to be handed over to the Swedes.

Known as "anakata", Warg ran The Pirate Bay with Fredrik "TiAMO" Neij, after the torrent indexing site was established in 2003.

Together with Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, Warg and Neij were found guilty of assisting copyright infringement in April 2009.

Neither Warg nor Neij showed up for their trial. Warg had left for Cambodia, and presented a medical certificate that he couldn't attend the trial due to illness.

Neij also left Sweden and has not served his prison sentence. He is thought to live in Laos currently.

The group received prison sentences and initially were ordered to pay damages of 30 million Swedish crowns ($A4.38 million) to record companies and movie studios.

After the four failed in in their appeal against their sentences, the damages were increased to 46 million crowns ($A6.72 million).

With interest and penalties, the costs have now increased to 74 million SEK ($A10.82 million). But only some 330,000 crowns ($A48,200) has been collected, SvD.se writes.

The money has been collected through bonds and other instruments from Carl Lundström, who also served four months in prison, the only one of the four The Pirate Bay associates to do so.

Lundström is now a Swiss resident with no further assets in Sweden. As the damages were awarded to private entities, Swedish court bailiffs will not pursue them in overseas jurisdictions.

Peter Sunde is still appealing his sentence, although the Swedish Supreme Court turned down (Swedish) his application in July this year.

He has asked the Swedish government for clemency, and if that fails, will spend eight months behind bars for his role as the spokesperson for The Pirate Bay.

Sunde is currently running micro-donations site Flattr, which in February this year received 14 million crowns ($A2 million) in venture capital. The company is now valued at 88 million crowns or $A13 million.

Despite police raids and mandatory ISP-level blocking in several countries, The Pirate Bay continues to operate. It is thought to be funded mainly by advertising.