A Swedish court sentenced on Friday four operators of the well-known file-sharing site The Pirate Bay to a year each in prison, a landmark victory for the music and movie industries.

The Swedish lower court found Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sund guilty of violating copyright law in the much watched case. The four men will also have to pay 30 million kronor (approximate $3.5 million) in restitution, according to media reports.

In a statement on its Web site, The Pirate Bay suggested that it would keep fighting.

"It was lol to read and hear, crazy verdict," read a statement on The Pirate Bay. "But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That's the only thing hollywood ever taught us."

The verdict is the conclusion to the two-week trial of the File-Sharing Foursome, as the defendants were dubbed by Wired News. The Pirate Bay hosts a massive directory of torrents -- small data files that point to the location of larger files that can be downloaded using the Bittorrent client. The site counts 3.5 million registered users and nearly 22 million peers.

Neij, Warg and Sunde were accused of being administrators for the file-sharing site, while Lundstrom allegedly funded the operation. The site has vowed to keep operating and, on Friday, told its users not to be concerned.

"Don't worry - we're from the internets. It's going to be alright. :-)" a message on the front page said.

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