The four ringleaders of torrent site Pirate Bay set foot in a Swedish courtroom yesterday (Feb. 16) to face charges of copyright infringement.

The four men, Carl Lundstrom, Fredrik Neijm, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg all entered innocent pleas to charges of conspiracy to break copyright law and being an accessory to breaking copyright law, according to news reports.

All four claim they skirted the letter of the law, if not the intent, because their site, the largest file-swapping community on the 'net, didn't actually host the stolen material.

If convicted, each pirate faces up to two years in jail, while civil claims from the film and music industry approach $15 million.

“The evidence in this case will show that The Pirate Bay is a commercial business which made substantial amounts of money for its operators, despite their claim to be only interested in spreading culture for free.”

The Stockholm district court will also reportedly rule on the entertainment industry's compensation demands of around 117m kronor ($14m) for lost sales income.

But The Pirate Bay founders disputed the allegations that the website's operations were continuing to turn over a hefty profit.

“It does not matter if they require several million or one billion. We are not rich and have no money to pay,” said Sunde. “They won’t get a cent.”

Swedish police first raided server locations connected with the notorious site in May 2006, following pressure from the US government.

Prosecutor HГҐkan Roswall expects the landmark case to last 13 days.