Legal action against web pirates

The music industry has started its largest legal action against online pirates with some 1,000 actions begun in 13 countries. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said that the action would target Asia for the first time, with lawsuits in Japan. The UK, France, Germany and Italy are also targets. This action coincides with a separate campaign to be launched in the US where the Record Industry Association of America is filing copyright infringement actions against 405 students in 18 colleges, claiming that they are using free internet connections to ‘steal music on a massive scale’ . In total, the number of illegal music files on the internet has declined from 1.1 billion two years ago to 870 million.