As unfair for some of the biggest names in the recording industry as it sounds, the Pirate Bay is already running good, after only 48 hours into its trial in Stockholm, Sweden. Half of the charges against the popular bit torrent-based file-sharing service were dropped on Tuesday. Now, its four defendants are on trial for “assisting making available copyright material,” a significantly less severe charge than the dropped “assisting copyright infringement.”

The Pirate Bay’s counsel successfully argued that bit torrent files are not compelling as evidence to prosecute The Pirate Bay, and that’s because they don’t demonstrate clear illegal activity from Pirate Bay’s part. It looks like the court accepted this argument that will probably get The Pirate Bay off the hook.

The plaintiffs are being led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the labels’ counsel, Peter Danowsky, argued that this is a good decision for them, as it simplifies the prosecutor’s case. Now, he is allowed to focus on the main issue, which is the availability of copyrighted works.

If they are to be convicted, the four defendants, The Pirate Bay's founders Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde Kolmsioppi, and an investor, Carl Lundstrom, face big fines and as much as two years’ jail time. The entertainment industry labels, which include Universal, Warner Bros., MGM, EMI, Sony BMG, 20th Century Fox and others, claimed compensation of about $16.6 million.

The Pirate Bay is a Swedish site that indexes and tracks bit torrent files and it was launched in 2003. In six years, it has become one of the most popular bit torrent sites on the Web, listing between 22 and 25 million users, according to various reports. Of course, The Pirate Bay claims it hosts no copyrighted content on its Web servers, and that’s because it hosts bit torrent links between the systems of its users.

The Pirate Bay has been the target of many copyright lawsuits over the years, being one of the most representative sites, after Napster, Kazaa and others, that music, movie and other recording industry labels have sought to identify as copyright lawbreakers. Apart from the recording industry’s demands regarding The Pirate Bay, the Swedish authorities also want them to forfeit 1.2 million Swedish kronor ($140,000) in advertising revenue generated from the site.

Furthermore, the Motion Picture Association is seeking 93 million Swedish kronor in damages. The evidence presented against The Pirate Bay included screenshots showing computers were connected to The Pirate Bay’s tracker, or software that coordinate P2P (peer to peer) file sharing. It remains to be seen if the recording industry will finally manage to strike The Pirate Bay with all its force, but it’s hard to believe they’ll manage to do that, given these recent events.