Bauer Media has known the plagiarism for a long time. In November 2018, journalist Malin Nilsson contacted several people at the media company, after discovering that Swedish murder stories plagiarized two of her reports in News24 about an attention-grabbing murder in Halmstad.

- I was very pissed, I had gone through the entire preliminary investigation, talked to police and prosecutors and spent months watching the story, says Malin Nilsson, who is now a journalist on Swedish Radio.

Nilsson receives a response from a senior manager at Bauer Media, who regrets what happened, and in the email response writes that he spoke to Sebastian Krantz as "corrected any errors". Malin Nilsson answers directly:

“Don't know how you mean to correct any errors - turning such large parts straight off is a copyright infringement. Will he redo the episode? "

Then communication stops. Some time later, the section in which Malin Nilsson is plagiarized was deleted, and replaced with a new version. No apology, or explanation, is ever given.

- Bauer Media should really know better, they have been working on this for so many years. If you are a serious publisher today, you have to know. "How do you get the fact" should have been the first question that was asked when this started, says Malin Nilsson.

Radio giant denies responsibility - continued to sell ads

Already after the first episode of Swedish Murder Stories 2016, Krantz was contacted by Bauer Media. They have since distributed his podcasts and sold ads to them. Bauer Media is Sweden's largest private radio operator, reaching around five million listeners a week through radio stations such as NRJ, Mix Megapol and the podcast service RadioPlay.

Bauer Media has declined an interview about the plagiarism for almost two weeks. In an e-mail to the Cultural News, they deny any responsibility for the extensive plagiarism, and say that they are merely a technical platform. However, they admit that they also previously known about the plagiarism in the podcasts examined:

“It is true that we have also previously been aware of possible copyright infringement. Then, just like now, we did an investigation and removed the material in question. We have a dialogue with Dabozzi Media, they have failed in control and are now conducting a larger investigation of all productions, "writes Jakob Gravestam, Group marketing director at Bauer Media, in an email.

Do you see any problem with selling ads to podcasts that contain, or are suspected of containing, plagiarized material?

- Absolutely. It is completely against our principles. We immediately remove any material that we suspect may be copied.