For several years the Swedish Pirate Party has provided hosting services to The Pirate Bay. One of the main reasons for the BitTorrent site to team up with the political party was because it wouldn't easily cave in to pressure from the entertainment industry. This promise will now be put to the test as the Swedish copyright watchdog "Rights Alliance" threatens to sue the Pirate Party next week if they refuse to pull the plug on TPB.

To serve its millions of daily visitors, The Pirate Bay uses a variety of hosting providers.

While the locations and providers of most cloud servers are unknown to the public, it is no secret that some of TPB’s traffic is routed through the Swedish Pirate Party.

TPB turned to the Pirate Party in 2010 after several major Hollywood movie studios obtained injunctions against its former hosting providers. The Pirate Party wanted to make a stand against the “bullying” tactics of the entertainment industry, and after three years this promise will now be put to its most serious test yet.

Today the Pirates announced that they have received a letter from the Swedish “Rights Alliance,” who are threatening legal action against the party and its representatives if they don’t stop servicing TPB within a week.

In the letter, which also targets bandwidth provider Serious Tubes, the group cites last year’s Supreme Court rejection of The Pirate Bay case as a precedent that hosting providers can be held liable for providing Internet services to file-sharing sites.

“With that decision, it was finally determined that not only those who operate illegal file sharing services, but also the Internet providers to such illegal services are committing a criminal act,” the Rights Alliance writes.

The Pirate Party clearly sees things differently and are convinced that they aren’t doing anything that’s against the law.

“The Pirate Party’s activity is legal and lawful activities should not be subjected to threats of this type. It is not illegal to provide the Pirate Bay with Internet access,” Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg says in a comment.

“There is no list of illegal sites which ISPs can not provide internet access to,” she adds.

The Pirate Party goes on to highlight that these type of “blackmail” campaigns are a way for the copyright holders to get what they want.

“Unfortunately, the kind of blackmail that the Pirate Party is now exposed to is not uncommon. Large and small Internet service providers are often subjected to similar pressure from the copyright industry lawyers,” Troberg notes.

“It is sad that they are allowed to continue this way, with both politicians and judicial blessing,” she adds.

While the Pirate Party doesn’t think they are breaking any laws, they are not sure whether the court will give them a fair hearing if the case goes to trial. Adding to that, the criminal conviction against the Pirate Bay founders and previous injunctions against TPB’s hosting providers will not be in their favor.

“Unfortunately, the fact that an activity is legal is not a guarantee that you will get a fair trial. This is precisely why the Pirate Party and is needed more than ever,” Troberg concludes.

The Pirate Party has until February 26 to decide how to respond to Rights Alliance’s threats.