"This morning we informed our distributor to cancel all sales of the book at this time until we were able to get a proper look into what had happened," Claes Ericson, publishing manager at Bookmark, writes to Kulturnewsna.

Bookmark publishes several books with popular podcast profiles, and acquired the rights to Swedish murder stories this summer from the publisher Pagina. According to Ericson, people have not been involved in the publication of the book themselves, and now want to investigate the plagiarism issue.

"During that time, we feel it is best and calm to interrupt all further distribution," Ericson continues.

Sponsor jumps off

The book Swedish Murder Stories consists of 12 scripts from the popular podcast of the same name, and which has millions of listeners since its inception in 2016. The cultural news review shows that both the podcast and the book contain several plagiarism from Swedish media and blogs. The most comprehensive examples are a six-minute party in the podcast, and four consecutive pages in the book.

Following the review, Com Hem is now ending its collaboration with the podcast Swedish Murder Histories, and is retiring as a sponsor.

- Of course, this is nothing that Com Hem is behind. We have therefore chosen to be excluded from Swedish murder stories, says Louise Ekman, communications manager for Tele2, which owns Com Hem, to the Culture News.

It is Bauer Media, one of the largest radio companies in the Nordic region, who is behind and distributes the podcast Swedish murder stories. According to Louise Ekman, Com Hem has no active collaboration with the podcast itself, which has now been plagiarized. However, they buy radio advertising from Bauer media. Louise Ekman says she has continued confidence in Bauer media, and will not break the sponsorship of their other programs and podcasts.

The book is stopped in store

While Com Hem is withdrawing as a sponsor of the podcast, the message comes that the Akademibokhandeln and their site Bokus immediately stopped the sale of the book Swedish Murder Histories, after the Cultural News review last Friday.

- For the event that we discover or become aware of a specific title's content, we evaluate it individually at the title level, writes Malin Hultgren, communicator at Akademibokhandeln, in an email.

- The title has been removed from our sales channels after we became aware of its content.

The cultural news seeks Swedish Murder History creator Sebastian Krantz, media company Bauer Media and responsible publisher Staffan Rosell for a comment.