The Pirate Bay said it will live on no matter what the outcome of a case brought by a Swedish prosecutor who charged four men involved with the running of the torrent tracker site today.

A blog post on the outfit's website declares: "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."

Copyright infringement charges were filed by public prosecutor Hakan Roswall in Sweden against four men (Carl Lundstrom, Peter Sunde, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg) behind the operations of the infamous website, who are accused of being accessories to breaking copyright law.

He listed a number of examples of music and films that he claimed had been illegally shared via The Pirate Bay website, including the likes of Robbie Williams, The Beatles and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Just last weekend, The Pirate Bay gave two fingers to the film and music industry with its claim to have hit ten million peers and one million torrents on its site.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has slammed The Pirate Bay, saying that it was not motivated by "idealism" and a love of music but was only interested in making bundles of cash.

IFPI CEO John Kennedy said: "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."

El Reg asked the IFPI, which represents the interests of music multinationals, if it thought The Pirate Bay was being a bit cocky about its claims that it will live on even if it loses the case in Sweden.

Jo Oliver, head of litigation at IFPI, said: "Illegal services like The Pirate Bay often distribute their operation to avoid detection and legal sanctions. This was the case with Kazaa and many other services that made money from exploiting other people's work.

"We would continue to use every avenue to seek the closure of this damaging service wherever it is located." ®

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