The operators of The Pirate Bay launched a long-awaited VPN service Monday, promising to make file sharers and other internet users more anonymous online.

The IPREDATOR Global Anonymity Service, at about $7 monthly, is named for Sweden's IPRED law that went into force in April. That law empowers copyright owners to acquire data from ISPs identifying people linked to file sharing.

The four operators of the Pirate Bay are staring down a year in prison each, and millions of dollars in fines, after being convicted in a Swedish court for facilitating copyright infringement. They run the world's most notorious BitTorrent search engine. Their fines and imprisonment are pending appeal.

On Monday, The Pirate Bay announced that 180,000 people have signed up for the service. Invitations to the first 3,000 who signed up in April went out Monday.

"There's been some small issues but it's being resolved right now," the Bay announced Monday on its blog. "Then we'll invite more people in... We're hoping that all will have their invite within a month's period."

TorrentFreak notes that the IPREDATOR service, announced in April, likely would be more secure than rank-and-file virtual private networks, which encrypt a user's traffic stream, making it theoretcially invulnerable to interception by a local ISP, or intermediate carriers.

"The weak link in any VPN/anonymity service is always their willingness (or otherwise) to hand over your customer data when pressured under the law. However, with IPREDATOR this should not be an issue since the service is promising to keep no logs of user activity whatsoever," TorrentFreak said.

Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in April, along with Carl Lundström, who was accused of funding the five-year-old operation.

In addition to jail time, the defendants were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and Columbia Pictures, for the infringement of 33 specific movie and music properties tracked by industry investigators.

The April verdicts are on appeal amid allegations the judge who presided over the case was biased because he was a member of pro-copyright groups.