Lawsuits against illegal downloading

UK Record Labels Expand Piracy Battle, Sue File Swappers

"We have been warning for months that unauthorized file-sharing is illegal," British Phonographic Industry Chairman Peter Jamieson said in a statement. "These are not people casually downloading the odd track. They are uploading music on a massive scale, stealing the livelihood of thousands of artists and the people who invest in them."

many leading music industry groups in the UK and Europe have launched a barrage of private lawsuits against dozens of individuals they say illegally swapped copyrighted music.
The British Phonographic Industry filed 28 lawsuits in Great Britain.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said it had started more than:-
400 lawsuits in Europe
50 lawsuits in France
100 lawsuits in Austria
174 lawsuits in Denmark
100 lawsuits in Germany

the Recording Industry Association of America has sued more than 3,000 alleged music pirates in the U.S.
The BPI said this came after a public warning to all UK music swappers in March and some 350,000 instant messages to known file sharers.

Jamison said the organization "resisted legal action as long as we could. We have done everything we can to raise awareness of this problem"

however, some have questioned whether targeting 12 years olds, as one lawsuit did, is an effective way of targetting piracy.
Jupiter Research analyst Mark Mulligan said the latest action was "inevitable" and puts all file sharers in the same boat.

He said "Digital youth in Europe and America are growing up with no understanding of music as a commodity. The perception that music is free and essentially disposable is one that spells long-term danger for the music industry."

However, only the users have been challenged rather than the file sharing networks. This shows the question of legality is stil not clear.

According to Jupiter, 19% of people surveyed said they would pay for song downloads over the internet, up from 16% a year ago.