Music biz declares war on file sharers

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will today begin preparing lawsuits against individual computer users who swap music files on peer-to-peer networks.

It is claiming that users are "illegally offering to share copyrighted music".

The industry body expects to use the data it collects as the basis for what could ultimately be thousands of lawsuits charging individuals with copyright infringement. The first round of suits could take place as early as mid-August.

"The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear," said RIAA president Cary Sherman.

"This activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences.

"We'd rather spend time making music than dealing with legal issues in courtrooms.

"But we cannot stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry."

Any individual who continues to offer music illegally to others now faces the risk of a civil lawsuit.

If found guilty, they could be fined several thousand dollars and potentially be subject to criminal prosecution, according to the RIAA.

The organisation intends to scan public directories of available to peer-to-peer network users, giving it a list of all the files on offer.

When the software finds a user offering to distribute copyrighted music files, it downloads some of the infringing files, along with the date and time at which it accessed the files.

The RIAA's move has angered many peer-to-peer users, but the group claimed that it has already tried to educate the public about the illegality of unauthorised downloading.

It explained that major music companies have made vast catalogues of music available to dozens of services to help create legitimate, high quality and inexpensive alternatives to online piracy.

But many of these services are unpopular with users, either because of the cost or the range of music they contain.

The only service that has really taken off, Apple's iTunes, is available only to Mac users in the US.