Judge orders Pirate Bay ISP to pull the plug

The Pirate Bay was dealt another round of damaging blows Monday when a Swedish court ordered the site to be shut down while the site's potential buyer lost a top executive.

A district court in Sweden ordered the Pirate Bay's internet service provider to take the site down as part of an ongoing legal battle between the file sharing site and a collection of studios.

News of the shutdown comes after reports that the Pirate Bay's potential buyer, Global Gaming Factory, would lose its chairman.

Magnus Bergman has reportedly notified Swedish authorities that he would be stepping down as chairman of the company.

The new reports come just three days before Global Gaming Factory was set to officially buy the Pirate Bay, and now there's speculation that the deal could be in serious jeopardy.

Global Gaming Factory first revealed its intent to buy the Pirate Bay in June for £4.72m ($A8 million).

The torrent-search site was dealt legal defeats from studios over recent months.

If the deal goes through as planned on 27 August the company is planning to re-launch the site as a legitimate media portal.

The community of former torrent users banded together recently to copy the site's directory to make it available for download as a torrent file.