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Ludvig Werner, chairman of IFPI Sweden, said: "For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law.

"Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world – from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV programme maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work.

"The operators of The Pirate Bay have violated those rights and, as the evidence in court will show, they did so to make substantial revenues for themselves. That kind of abuse of the rights of others cannot be allowed to continue."

The Pirate Bay has insisted that the site will survive, whatever the outcome of the trial. The pirates have set up their servers in different parts of the world, claiming that they do not know exactly where they are.

The authorities have acknowledged that this may be only the start of the battle. Hakan Roswall told Reuters: "Because the infrastructure is scattered among several places around the world... no separate country will be able to stop the site." But he said he believed advertisers might have second thoughts about using Pirate Bay if a guilty verdict is handed down. "That can be the sort of thing that influences the site in the long run."

Jo Oliver said: "I think that that if the site were to move, which is by no means a foregone conclusion, there would be further legal action in other countries."

The Pirate Bay could not be reached for comment, but in a blog posting the men behind the website said in January: "The past year has been good to all of us. Next year won't be as good, is our sad prediction.

"File sharing will not be very affected but our rights as human beings are being infringed on all the time. New laws are passed all over the world and especially here in Sweden. We're very sad by this so we hope that we are proven wrong."

The trial is expected to make daily headlines in Sweden, where illegal file sharing is a major political talking point, and will be followed closely on the internet around the world. There will a live audio feed of the trial from broadcaster SVT 24 and the Pirate Bay is encouraging journalists and bloggers to send updates to Twitter.

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