That's the impression Swedish district prosecutor H'kan Roswall came away with after he was summoned to Sweden's Justice Department on April 7th to be briefed on the matter.

"I was then made to understand that threats of blacklisting in the context of the World Trade Organization had been directed from the American government to the Swedish government," Roswall said in an interview with Swedish television news program Rapport.

Less than two months later, Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay was raided by the police.

Sweden's undersecretary of state, Dan Eliasson, told Rapport that the U.S. had made comments regarding the efficiency of its system in protecting copyrights, and had suggested that the U.S. could use trade sanctions against countries that don't meet international commitments.

The Pirate Bay had clearly been the target of U.S. criticism. Earlier this spring, Prosecution Authority Director Sven-Erik Alhem was summoned to the Cabinet Offices to discuss Internet piracy. Aside from a general discussion of the topic, the handling of The Pirate Bay was obviously the main issue, he said.