The website has plundered intellectual property for years. Though its administrators now face charges in a Swedish court and face up to two years in prison if convicted, the pillaging goes on unabated.

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site that lets users search for files that are available for sharing, is facing a battle on at least two fronts. A Danish court recently ordered a Denmark Internet service provider (ISP), Tele2, to block the site. That order came just days after four people behind the ad-supported site were arrested in Sweden for promoting copyright infringement.

Now, a public prosecutor in Sweden has filed charges of preparing and participating in copyright infringement against four individuals who invested in and operate The Pirate Bay: Carl Lundstrom, Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. Plaintiffs in the case include Warner Bros, MGM Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Sony BMG. The charges follow 18 months of investigation since the raid on The Pirate Bay’s offices in 2006. The service, however, has continued its operations since that raid, facilitating access to copyright-infringing material.

According to a press release by IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), the Pirate Bay facilitates access to many forms of copyright infringing material, including music by popular Swedish and international artists and films, television programs like the BBC’s Doctor Who and even books such as JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. It allows its users to search for and download indexed torrent files, which contain the information needed to download data files containing the copyright-infringing content from other users of the service.

While the company alleges that its business model is based on selling advertising to brands that wanted to reach its 10 million users in more than 30 countries, it pays nothing for the content that it uses to attract those users.

So far, neither the Swedish charges nor the Danish court order has resulted in the site's closing. The four alleged site operators have declared they have no intention of shutting down despite the arrests. In a post on the site's blog, they boasted, "In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site. The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more."

The operators argue that The Pirate Bay is lawful, noting that it doesn't host any copyrighted content and doesn't know which of the clips it indexes are infringing and which are legitimate. And, one of the four who was arrested, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, told Wired that the site is immune to any shutdown orders because its servers are scattered worldwide.

In fact, the Pirate Bay servers are not located in Sweden. And the Pirate Bay administrators themselves do not know where the servers are. What is known is that the site is on several servers across several countries, and any of them going down soon is doubtful.

Additionally, even though Tele2 said it would comply with the court order, that's not expected to even make a dent in Pirate Bay's traffic. Tele2 provides service to just 4% of the country's 2 million Web users, according to Reuters. What's more, historically this type of order hasn't been effective. In 2006, a Danish court ordered an Internet service provider to block access to the Russian-based site AllOfMP3.com, but Web users figured out a way around the restrictions.

A broad coalition of rights holders has supported action against The Pirate Bay for some time, calling on the Swedish government to provide the prosecution with the resources needed to complete the investigation.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, says: “The operators of The Pirate Bay have always been interested in making money, not music. The Pirate Bay has managed to make Sweden, normally the most law abiding of EU countries, look like a piracy haven with intellectual property laws on a par with Russia.

Ludvig Werner, chairman of IFPI Sweden, says: “The Pirate Bay operation has caused massive financial damage to rights holders. The profiteers behind The Pirate Bay have no interest in free speech, and they are not running The Pirate Bay because they love music and films. They are totally mercenary and are driven by the desire for personal wealth.”

Everyone is also happy about the Danish enforcement court order. Henrik Daldorph, chairman of IFPI Denmark and managing director of SonyBMG, said, “This ruling is a broad message that calls on ISPs to make an effort against internet piracy…We once again invite the ISPs to engage in a dialogue with the industries that deliver the content on which their broadband services have been marketed since their beginning...”

Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager, criticized the ISPs for having earned billions from the music industry by selling increasingly faster broadband connections to users, who for the larger part have used them for sharing music and films, without giving the content owners a share of their earnings.

But will this lawsuit really discourage future file-sharing entities from doing their nefarious deeds? Not so, according to an article by Thomas Mennecke in Slyck News. It seems all this is just tough talk because all the Swedish prosecutor is levying against the four administrators (of the 10 million+ user Pirate Bay) is a measly $185,000! Compare this with the $30 million that BearShare had to pay, the $100 million lawsuit against Sharman Networks, the $30 million settlement forced on the company behind eDonkey 2000…and one wonders.

Even if the record and movie industries continue fighting for their IP rights in court and focus their ire on online pirates, are these types of legal moves are achieving their goals?