Music cheats in court

Usher: one of the most popular artists downloaded for nothing

Internet users who illegally download music are being taken to court from today.

Persistent offenders, most of them from London and the South-East, are to be made the subject of legal orders banning them from breaching copyright laws.

If they are caught defying the orders, record bosses are to press judges to jail them under contempt of court laws.

And internet users, most of them teenagers who "file-share", have been sent a warning message on their computer screens about the get-tough policy.

File-sharing allows illegal downloaders to swap music stored on computers with millions of people all over the world. They can download an album and "burn" the music onto a CD, saving up to £15 each time.

More than seven million people in Britain illegally download music over the web. The so-called internet " bootleggers" are "stealing the livelihoods of artists," says the record industry. The most popular artists who are repeatedly downloaded for nothing include Usher, OutKast, the Pixies and Avril Lavigne.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the record companies' trade association, said it was declaring war on "major uploaders" - people who make their music collection available on the internet, illegally, for other web users to share.

So far more than 350,000 messages have been sent to computer users telling them that they will be taken to court if they do not stop downloading tracks.

The BPI is to name and shame 28 who have persistently distributed music files and will take them to court in legal actions which begin today. The

BPI chairman Peter Jamieson said: "We have been warning for months that unauthorised file-sharing is illegal." He added: "These are not people casually downloading the odd track."

It was being done on "a massive scale, effectively stealing the livelihoods of thousands of artists and the people who invest in them".

Thirty per cent of all downloads are the work of 12- to 19-year-olds, and 47 per cent of these offenders download more than 10 tracks a month.

The High Court will issue disclosure orders forcing internet providers to reveal the identities of the individuals involved, following which the record industry will sue. A BPI spokesman said: "We could know the offenders' names in 24 hours or two weeks. It just depends on the speed of the legal process."

The move comes against the background of a breakthrough year for legal online music in Britain. Sites such as iTunes allow internet users to pay to download tracks.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in