Italian Internet Service Providers have been ordered to block access to the Pirate Bay file-sharing Bit Torrent tracker site in Sweden by a judge in the Northern Italian town of Bergamo.

This is the same judge, who has not been named, which only last month closed a leading Bit Torrent site in Italy and is due to hear charges against three of its administrators.

Colonel Alessandro Nencini of the Italian police squad specialising in finance matters is currently investigating a total of four people who stand accused of being administrators of Pirate Bay and breaking copyright laws in Italy.

The Pirate Bay is a hugely popular file-sharing service, with as many as 20 million visitors happily trading music and movies each and every month.

The action is being taken following formal complaints from the Milan-based Federation against Musical Piracy.

The Swedes, meanwhile, have suggested that unhappy Italians should use an OpenDNS system to get around the ISP blocking after calling the Italian action nothing less than an assault on freedom of speech.

"We're quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators" a Pirate Bay spokesman stated.