The Pirate Bay, the controversial Swedish piracy torrent tracker, is launching a music site where users can share as much music as they want.

Playable.com is a collaboration between The Pirate Bay, members of the Swedish rock band Lamont, and their manager Kristopher S Wilbur. A statement said: "The shared insight that the record industry is outdated inspired the birth of Playable.com."

Playable.com will allow users to support artists financially. Users will have to pay a monthly fee, but it is up to them how much they want to spend. Artists will receive a portion of that money every time one of their songs is downloaded.

It is unlikely that many record companies will join the initiative, in particular since The Pirate Bay intends to make transactions through its current torrent tracker almost "completely untraceable".

Co-founder Peter Sunde approached several record companies in the USA and told the Los Angeles Times that one record boss even accused him of "perpetrating a disturbingly Viking-like act" on the executive's livelihood.

It is more than likely Playable.com will face law suits for copyright infringement.

Last year, the popular file sharing network eDonkey agreed to pay $30m to settle a case brought by six music labels. P2P networks have succumbed one by one since the US Supreme Court ruled in June 2005 that file sharing services are illegal. ®

Related stories

• Pirate Bay slapped with copyright charges (31 January 2008)
• Pirate Bay hits ten million peers, one million torrents (28 January 2008)
• Pirate Bay aims to sink BitTorrent (1 November 2007)
• The Pirate Bay absconds with domain name of its nemesis (16 October 2007)
• Pirate Bay sues media giants for 'sabotage' (24 September 2007)
• Music industry cripples eDonkey network (20 September 2007)
• Another investigation into Pirate Bay child porn (3 September 2007)
• Sweden may block Pirate Bay over child porn (9 July 2007)
• Belgium judge orders ISP to clean up network (5 July 2007)
• Pirate Bay founders host paedophilia site (5 June 2007)
• US seeks to criminalize 'attempted' piracy (15 May 2007)
• Pirate Bay plundered by hackers (14 May 2007)
• The Pirate Bay admits links with right-wing benefactor (7 May 2007)
• Wal-Mart ads pop up on Pirate Bay (17 January 2007)
• The Pirate Bay plans to buy Sealand (12 January 2007)
• Lightning destroys evidence in Swedish file sharing case (4 October 2006)
• Swedish pirates plan pan-European electoral assault (29 September 2006)
• Nordic file sharers form pressure group (19 July 2006)
• Updated Piratebay operators hope to win compensation (2 June 2006)